


Transit

by fansofcollisions



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Homelessness, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Road Trips, Tight Spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fansofcollisions/pseuds/fansofcollisions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>At least they're headed somewhere.</i>
</p><p>Castiel (newly human) and Benny (newly risen) hit the open road, Macklemore style. Castiel's got his eyes on the horizon. Benny's still wondering why they haven't swung left towards Lebanon.</p><p>Canon divergent after 9x03.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Castiel knows a thing or two about loopholes. After all, he and Crowley worked together for months; he’s learned from the best. And the ways of Purgatory are less of a mystery than they were during said acquaintance, which makes stitching together the seams of this little intrusion even easier, or at least less horribly impossible.

The moment the searing ache sets into the marrow of his forearm he begins to long for his grace, marvel at how he could have ever taken for granted the immunity to pain. Still, it’s almost an improvement over the ice which was only moment ago seeming to permeate every part of his upper body. He needs a jacket not lifted out of a Salvation Army donation box in the dead of night. He needs a building to sleep in, preferably with a functioning furnace. He needs more food than the casual kindness of strangers can supply.

He thinks he might be truly dying, and he can’t bring himself to call the only number programmed into his phone (too certain he might be asked to delete it) and this is what he knows: the desperation play won’t save him, but it might be enough for-

Well, it might be something, at least.

He’s glad he chose a secluded spot for this, though he still longs for the warmth of the fire he left under the bridge. Too many people there to witness the orange sparks now sputtering about him, the makeshift altar and his blood smeared across it, a single hair plucked from the remnants of a tattered white shirt smoking in the auburn embers.

His hand pulses weakly from the ragged incision. He barely feels it. His whole body’s gone numb, and now he’s certain it isn’t just the chill. There’s the whisper of magic in his ears, and the taste of blood in his mouth, and black patterns sparking across his field of vision. He feels himself sway. The movement takes him straight into the solid chest of the man who wasn’t there moments before.

“Woah, there…”

Cas never thought he’d want to see this face of all faces again in his life, yet he looks up at bewildered blue eyes and what floods through him can only be described as joy, though it’s dulled by the pounding in his head. He didn’t honestly expect it to work, this spell. It was a fool’s hope. And by the astounded look on Benny’s face, this isn’t the place he’d expected to find himself either.

“Castiel?” Benny breathes, grabbing Cas by the shoulders and pushing him back to see him more clearly. Cas follows his movement, pliant as a rag doll. “What in the hell…”

“It seems the spell worked,” Castiel says, doing his very best to keep his voice level as he forces the words out through half-frozen lips. He knows this is the point when he should remove Benny’s hands from his shoulders, but Benny is still staring at him so incredulously, like he can’t look away or Cas will dissipate in the wind, and his hands are warm. He’s not one to pass up warmth, these days.

“This is a hallucination,” Benny concludes, and puffs out a relieved breath of laughter. Castiel is fascinated at the way the lines beside his eyes crinkle as he smiles. An affectionate smile, not a smirk or a leer. It’s been weeks and he’s already sick with the need of that sort of expression. He wonders how he could have gone millennia without it. “Wouldn’t have expected you to be my knight in shining armor at the end of the line.” Benny laughs again.

Castiel wants to respond but he’s afraid he might bite his tongue if he does, so he stays silent and wills Benny to believe. If he turns and runs now, this will all be for nothing. It’s too much to contemplate.

“Never thought I could have dreamed you up a getup like this either,” Benny says, whistling low. “Seeing as I’ve never seen you without that motheaten coat of yours.” The blue jacket is gone too, torn in half by a grasp of a strung out drifter who mistook Castiel for an old enemy. He’s not sure the hoodie would qualify as maroon anymore. He probably is an odd sight to see, but he can’t quite find it in himself to feel embarrassed.

“So this is my light at the end of the tunnel, right?” Castiel shakes his head, or at least he thinks he does. The numbness has settled into his joints now. Maybe he doesn’t, or Benny ignores it. “Guess I can admit I’m damn glad to see you. The forest is a little lonely nowadays. Never an issue before, I suppose, but now-” He chuckles nervously, letting go of Cas’s shoulders to rub at the back of his neck. “Don’t even know why I’m saying all this. Not like it matters. I’m going to wake up with some wolf snapping its jaws at me, or I’m going to die and the wolves will get me then. Either way I’m only talking to myself.

“Maybe this is life’s way of getting me to say goodbye to you proper, huh? Only got to do that with Dean, and as much as you were a pain in my ass, I would have liked to do you the courtesy at least.” His eyes flick down to meet Castiel’s. “But I’m ramblin’, aren’t I? Hell, I’m even boring my own sorry hallucinations.”

“We have to go,” Castiel says, fighting the sleepiness that’s overtaking his body, his voice, to get the needed urgency behind his words.  
Benny glances around and laughs again. “I’m sure this is all very poetic to somebody higher up, but I’m not just going to follow the angel of death who’s telling me my time’s finished. Sorry, but I’m not going anywhere. Still got a lot of things left to do.” The words are still said with affection, and Benny reaches out as if to touch Castiel’s shoulder, a parting gesture. Cas throws the last of his strength into grabbing Benny’s arm and shoving him into the wall.

“This is not a game,” he hisses. “This is not an illusion, or a trick your mind is playing on you.” He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, dips his head forward till wild tangles of dark hair brush Benny’s collar. “I need you to understand that. I need- I’m-“

“Shivering,” Benny says, his eyes widening in realization. He lifts his hand from Castiel’s loosened grip and brings it to touch his cheek. The skin sends painful sparks burning through his jaw. “Why-“

“Because this is real. And I’m not an angel anymore,” he adds. “You don’t need to worry.” He can’t keep the edge of bitterness from cutting into his words.

“Y’know, I’m almost starting to believe you’re not lying.”

“Glad to hear it. Now let’s go.” He pushes himself off Benny and starts walking away, the last dregs of adrenaline pulsing through his system giving him steadier feet than he’d had an hour ago.

“Where?”

He has a destination now, and this is exactly what he needed. A reason to put one foot in front of the other. A tangible goal, one past basest survival. His head feels clearer already, strategies flickering through his mind. And all he required was one good soldier on his side. The burst of renewed purpose is almost enough to convince him it will be worth it, in the end.

“Warsaw, Missouri.”

“What could possibly be in Warsaw, Missouri that’s so important?”

Castiel pauses. He doesn’t look back.

“Recompense.”

He continues on. Heavy footfalls soon settle into a rhythm behind him, and for the first time in weeks, he smiles.

It will all be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally wrote and posted this story on Tumblr while Season 9 was still airing aka back when the dinosaurs walked the earth. Those were strange, strange times in the fandom. Spirits were low... satisfaction was waning... everyone was obsessed with Misha Collins' hipbones...
> 
> I wrote this story as a gift to a friend, not really being a Castiel/Benny shipper myself at the time, but somewhere in the course of 25000-that-were-only-supposed-to-be-2000 words I fell in love with these rapscallions and their surprising chemistry.
> 
> I was a bit dissatisfied with my original ending and didn't have the time to rework it back then, hence my taking multiple years to get around to putting it up on Ao3. This is a completed work, but I'll be posting a chapter every day or so to allow myself to make small edits along the way.


	2. Chapter 2

To his credit, Benny manages to follow for about two blocks without saying a word. This is exactly the amount of time it takes the last of Castiel’s adrenaline to wear off before he collapses, the stress of… well, of everything catching up with him.

“Jesus,” says Benny as he crouches down beside Cas’s fallen form. “What the hell happened to you?” he asks, wondering more to the sky than to Castiel’s face.

Cas aches to say something sarcastic, but he’s afraid what might come up would be some slight against Dean and Dean is the last thing he wants to think about right now. He’s already dreading Benny’s inevitable demands to see him, demands he won’t be able to grant. He settles for a tired, if honest, “life”, before accepting Benny’s help off the ground.  


“Are you hurt?” Benny asks, more concern than he’d expected out of that gruff voice.

“No,” he says truthfully. Any pain in his limbs long ago transitioned to numbness. He’s fairly certain that’s a symptom of frostbite, though it’s not a malady he’s certain how to deal with. Treating it probably involves something both expensive and inaccessible, if the rest of his experience with human illness is any indication.

“You’re not well, that’s for damn sure,” Benny says, and slings Cas’s arm over his shoulder. Benny’s body doesn’t feel right. It’s too warm, too unlike the vampiric steel he’d associated with his occasional touch in Purgatory. Even the skin beneath Benny’s thick black jacket burns like a radiator into his side. It must be because of the frostbite, he reasons. It probably affects the nervous system in some strange way. That would be logical.

“I’ll be fine.”

Benny looks him up and down. “Whatever you say. Where do we turn?”

Castiel has planned this far at least, which is a blessing considering the foggy state of mind he’s in. “Left, then two blocks forward, then a right and three blocks ahead, the bus station,” he says, practiced, mechanically, letting his head fall against Benny’s neck and closing his eyes. It’s blissful, to let another carry his weight for a few steps. It almost feels like floating. It’s almost as easy as flying.

When he opens his eyes the next time, he finds in astonishment that his feet have indeed left the ground. He blinks blearily and reorients himself, finds he’s ended up bridal style and tucked against Benny’s chest. They’re still moving, but he doesn’t recognize the street they’re on anymore.

“You can’t go collapsing on me like that, angel,” Benny teases, a vein of worry flavouring his tone. Castiel mumbles his dissent at the title, but there’s no strength behind the protest. “We need to get some warmth in these bones.” A large hand runs across Castiel’s ribs. Somewhat shocked, he adds, “Some meat on them too. Hasn’t Dean been feeding you? You’re all skin and twigs.” He glances around, as if expecting the third party to jump from an alley. “Where is he, anyway? Seems a bit cruel to send you as an errand boy in this weather. He waiting around here somewhere?”

“Not exactly,” he murmurs into Benny’s shirt. He’s not sure Benny hears him.

It would sting, to think Benny thought it impossible to have orchestrated this himself, that it must have been Dean’s doing, when he used to command the movement of a thousand angels with a mere thought. Except that all Benny’s ever seen of him has been helplessness and a penchant for attracting unwanted attention. Perhaps it’s not a shock he sees him as little more than Dean’s troublesome charge, needing of protection. He’d be frustrated with that too, if only he hadn’t felt so sickeningly like begging when Dean tossed him out the door, if only he wasn’t so close to succumbing to the elements now. If Benny’s solid presence, though he’s never even liked the man, didn’t fill him with a renewed surety, a physical manifestation of safety he’s never needed in his life before all this. If April’s phantom touch didn’t still linger on his skin.

He hates that protection is a thing he craves now, but he can no longer deny that he needs it.

“Well, he’ll have to catch up. Better we get to that station quick as possible. You need some heat and I need a place to properly wring my hands about the ridiculousness of our situation.”

Benny keeps a steady pace as they walk the lonesome streets. No one in their right mind is out at this hour, not in this part of town. A few youths in black hoodies draw into the shadows as they pass, ghosts in the shadows of Topeka’s finest warehouses and abandoned factories. The lights on the bus station are a lighthouse beacon, putting the dim streetlamps to shame.

“Can you walk the rest of the way?” Castiel grumbles something about not being an invalid as he’s deposited on his feet. The time against Benny’s body has done his own some good, though he knows he won’t feel anywhere near ready for anything strenuous till he feeds this body (himself, he reminds a spirit still not come completely to terms with the association) something nourishing. Protein, carbohydrates, fibre. The first two are the most important, though there are four groups and he should get some of all of them every day to keep this body strong. He hadn’t realized through observing the Winchesters’ diets that consumption was meant to be so strictly measured in order to maintain good health, but the internet has been informative. However, the internet couldn’t tell him how a person was meant to achieve this balance when an apple costs a dollar fifty – a day’s worth of change scrounged from vending machines – a bagel, even more, and extra for the peanut butter…

It gives him a greater appreciation for the foil-wrapped burgers he once ate by the hundreds. How many men and women and children just like him could he have fed with the spoils of one night of indulgence? The thought turns his stomach.

“Hey, why don’t I go buy the tickets?” Benny says. “You just sit yourself down right here.” Castiel eyes him skeptically. “I took a bus or two while I was topside the last time. Don’t worry, m’not about to get taken advantage of.”

“The Greyhound doesn’t run to Warsaw. We’ll have to take one to Kansas City and pick up another bus there.” The lady at the bus station window had told him this the last time she’d caught him staring in frustrated despair at the schedules. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of crumpled bills, the last of what he’d left Lebanon with. Fifty-six dollars, twenty-four cents. He doesn’t know how much bus tickets in Kansas City will be, but this will be enough for their passage there. He’s triple checked the rates.  


Kansas City is much larger than Topeka. Panhandling should be easier there with the higher density of people, or at least it makes sense that it would. Perhaps he’s wrong. Either way he’s got Benny now, who survived on his own for nearer to three months up here if Dean’s account is to be believed. He must know some trick for getting money from nothing. He hopes it doesn’t involve stealing. He’s had one too many hard-won possessions lifted while he slept in the last few weeks to consider the thought of doing it to another.

Castiel passes Benny the money and he disappears into the building, which is really more of a tiny rectangle with a plexi-glass window, not meant for frozen souls waiting for a bus to loiter in. This leaves him to sit heavily on the concrete bench. It feels like a slab of ice against his now warmed back, but he leans against it all the same.  


When Benny returns, he grabs Castiel’s hand and presses something into it. Cas looks down to see a chocolate bar there, bought from one of the vending machines. He wants to protest, say that the money they have left needs to be saved for the tickets to Warsaw, but all that comes out is a word of thanks, more deeply felt than he’d expected.  


“It’s your money I bought it with.” Benny harrumphs and sits down beside him.

Castiel has to rub his hands together to get enough movement in them to tear open the foil, but once he manages it he almost can’t bring himself to take a bite. He can’t explain it, but the chocolate makes his stomach roil. Still, he knows that he needs the nourishment and so he eats the bar in three bites, and licks the foil afterwards to get the last traces of caramel. Benny stares at the farthest streetlight, hands clasped between spread knees.

“Dean isn’t coming, is he?”

“No.”

“Does he know you raised me?” Castiel shakes his head. “Why did you?”

“What?”

“Why did you raise me?”

“I already told you.”

Benny huffs. “You didn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t press.

They wait out the dawn in silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I realized something - I've been holding off from continuing to post this fic because I wanted to fix all the flaws from its first iteration. But if I'm honest with myself, that's not going to happen - it's been too long, and I can't write the same way I did 3 years ago. 
> 
> And ultimately, it's better to have posted an imperfect product than to keep it hidden away for editing that I'll never finish. What good does that do anyone? So, that is to say, expect me to keep posting updates until it's done, flaws and all, edits or no :)

There’s something comforting in the sound of wheels on pavement. Castiel never appreciated it before, when the Impala was the only vehicle he’d ever ridden in, except for the Harvelles’ truck that time long ago. Back then, his place in these people’s lives – even if those lives were short and sluggish – felt well-deserved, even destined. This was before he had to wonder whether his presence in the Impala was taking up undue space. Whether the screech of tires against the asphalt was his dead weight pressing the chassis down.

Now the seat below him hums with waves of friction and gravel makes a scattered percussive sound as a truck passes the bus and when he leans back, he can feel the buzz of movement in the fabric behind his head, and it tugs at something deep within him, and it’s  _wonderful_.

He once thought to deride this mode of transportation for its slowness. Today, the long stretch of road ahead feels like borrowed time, time he doesn’t deserve, and he’s almost grateful for the delay. He doesn’t mind savouring this, for as long as it lasts.

Benny sits to his left, staring somewhat forlornly past him and out the window at the rising sun, as if he’s willing it to drop back down below the horizon. They’ve got another four hours to Kansas City, and Castiel is tired in a bone deep way that can’t quite be shaken off. At least the bus is a shelter from the wind.  Though shivers still shake his body every minute or so, Benny’s heavy jacket is draped around his shoulders and it helps, somewhat.

With a window onto open fields on his right and a lethal bodyguard on his left (Benny had insisted on the outside seat, against which Castiel had raised no great protest) he can’t help the way his body begins to sag and slump until his head is resting against the window. Its lack of cooperation is reminding him he requires sleep. He sometimes still needs the prompting.

The rattling of the glass chatters his teeth and after a few minutes he reluctantly pulls himself back up into a sitting position. While the movement of the bus is comforting, the shape of the seats is anything but and no amount of repositioning can seem to place him in a way that makes sleep possible. It’s a shame. He was hoping to regain a little energy while they had time.

“You feelin’ better?” Benny mutters to him. There are only a few other passengers scattered across the bus, which is not unexpected for a ride which left at five AM, but he keeps his voice down nonetheless. Castiel appreciates his discretion. Benny doesn’t even know what hunts him, but the after image of burning comets still haunts the back of Castiel’s eyelids. Suddenly he doesn’t feel as much like closing them.

“I’m much recovered.” He adds  _thank you_ , though he’s not exactly sure what he’s thanking Benny for. The concern, the lent jacket, for not bolting when he had a chance. Maybe all three.

“Just would rather have you in one piece, is all. This world’s no fun all on my own.” He’s joking, Castiel reminds himself. No need to project his own bitterness onto this man’s words. Still, Benny doesn’t smile, just keeps staring out the window like he sees some spectre on the horizon. Castiel only looks ahead. He sees an end to the journey on the black pavement ahead. He longs for sleep.

“I don’t intend to fall apart anytime soon.”

“What did you call that act back there then, Humpty Dumpty? Or are you choosing to forget me hoisting your ass three blocks?” Another reference he doesn’t recognize. At least this feels familiar.

“I would have managed just fine.”

“You’d be rat food without me.”

“Yes, but  _you’d_  be dead.”

“…Touche.”

Castiel is surprised to find himself smiling. The banter rolls smoothly off his tongue. He knows this conversation, this griping one word off mean-spirited, one word off begrudgingly civil. It harkens back to weeks of tearing through black forest and swapping insults more for show and for sport than from malice near the end. He remembers a time when his tongue was quick enough to catch even Uriel off his guard. Maybe humanity has not stripped him of every faculty.

The yawn takes him by surprise. It’s still one of the oddest sensations his new form affords him. Why would tiredness cause one’s jaw involuntarily to gape? “All tuckered out?” says Benny, and Castiel, for all his millennia, still manages to feel like a patronized child at the words. His first instinct is to pout and claim he is perfectly awake, but that would rather only reinforce the point, he thinks.

And besides, it would be impractical to pretend away his exhaustion. He  _needs_ to rest. It’s imperative. It’s worth sacrificing dignity over.

After a moment’s thought, he lowers his head to rest on Benny’s shoulder. Benny stiffens.

This sort of bodily contact is against human decorum. Castiel is more than aware of that fact. And the fact that they both inhabit male bodies (it will take a while longer, he thinks, to embrace  _maleness_ as his own attribute, if he ever claims it at all) adds to the taboo. But they are not human, neither one of them, and these are exceptional circumstances. And Benny is still warm, though he doesn’t burn as fiery hot as he did in the alleys of Topeka, and despite hours away from the elements Castiel is still so  _cold_. He thinks this body should have regained some of its heat by now. The jacket’s insulation should be helping more. But the moment his cheek presses into Benny’s shoulder, bare now except for his linen shirt, heat seeps into his skin and all other thoughts are behind him as a pleasured sigh slips his lips. It’s – for lack of a less painful word – heavenly. If this is an extreme reaction, he doesn’t realize it. Touch is still such a mysterious thing.

“Hmufrg,” Benny grumbles something unintelligible, but he doesn’t push Castiel off. The stiffness eventually loosens and he slumps down slightly in the seat, resting his own head against the back of the seat. He lifts his left hand to tug his cap down across his eyes, blocking the rising sun from his gaze. Castiel had almost forgotten vampires prefer the cover of night. Purgatory teaches one to forget the feeling of sunlight, after all.

The same sun is high in the sky when they reach Kansas City, Castiel still pillowed against Benny’s shoulder, one hand braced on the seat against his thigh, Benny snoring softly in his ear.

They left no sentry awake to guard them while they slept. It’s poor strategy. Maybe humanity has made Castiel forgetful, foolish.

 He tends to think it’s just made him very, very tired.


	4. Chapter 4

There isn’t a bus to Warsaw. It’s too small a town, the bus station attendant explains. He seems disgruntled and there are other people gathering in a line behind him to purchase tickets, so Castiel decides not to press the point. They’ll figure out another way.

He rejoins Benny, who’s leaning against the wall and biting a fingernail absentmindedly, hat still drawn low to shade his eyes from the noon-day sun. “We have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“It appears we’ll need to find alternative transportation out of this city.”

“… Great.” Benny pushes himself up and straightens his shirt. “Now, I wasn’t asking before seeing how tired out you were, but since we’re stuck here, you have plenty of time to explain some things to me.”

He frowns expectantly, but Castiel doesn’t answer. He wonders if he simply never responds to Benny’s questions, he’ll stop asking. The approach seemed to work well for Dean, in the bunker before the angels fell. Enough words said without a response demoralized Castiel sufficiently to keep his sentences down to the bare essentials, to have him dropping any inquiries that weren’t absolutely necessary. Not that he really wants to hurt Benny’s feelings, but it would make things easier in the long run, if he didn’t have to know certain things. He’s also somewhat guiltily enjoying Benny’s quiet willingness to accept orders for the moment; the high of leadership is a welcome change from feeling dull and underfoot in Purgatory’s playground of terrors. It feels like old times, like he’s a soldier again. Only it would be preferable if they were friends as well as uneasy allies, like he was with the members of his garrison.

He thinks Anna and Benny might have gotten on better, their temperaments more suited. Two pillars of calm decision, they’ve got the same fierceness in their spirits and the same solemn surety in their actions. None of Castiel’s naivety or pride, or dependence. Then again, had Anna been the one to survive and he to fall to Michael’s sword, she would have never made the mistakes he did. Dean would have fallen happily into her arms – he was not oblivious to the attraction that was between them – and would have never been cast into Purgatory as a result of Castiel’s stupidity and hubris.

Then again, Benny would be wandering the forest forever without an outside hope of ever seeing the sun again, so at least his failures weren’t entirely fruitless.

“Take this,” Castiel says as they exit the station, shrugging off the black jacket slung around his shoulders.

“You’re still shivering. Keep it.”

“It’s better protection than that shirt. You should wear it,” Castiel insists.

Benny considers for a moment, then squints up at the sky. “… Naw. You know, it isn’t bothering me so much as it used to.” He shrugs, worrying his brow. “It’s strange. Usually I’d be cooking up a nice rash by this point, but I feel fine.” He presses the jacket back in Castiel’s arms. “Take it.”

Castiel puts it back on, letting the black fabric drown his frame. Even with that and the warmth of midday, chills don’t stop running fire down his arms every minute or so. He’s beginning to wonder if he should seriously consider stopping by a library to check on the effects of hypothermia. This seems a long time to still be feeling so shaky, and he can’t afford to collapse before they reach their destination. Of course, a bus ride to the library would require money, which is their more pressing issue by far.

“How much do we have?” Castiel asks.

“What?”

“How much money?” Benny pulls a couple bills from his pocket and a handful of change. He passes it to Castiel.

Two dollars and seventy-four cents. He cringes. That’s the lowest he’s ever been before. Barely enough for two cups of coffee.

“What’s the plan then, chief? You don’t have a hidden reserve squirreled away somewhere in this city, do you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Benny sighs. “Well, there’s always hitchhiking,” he suggests, but Castiel shakes his head. He’s learned his lesson well about getting in cars with strangers. “I don’t know then. You’re the one with the mysterious mission, you work it out.” He can tell Benny is exasperated with him. This is not surprising. It’s better than anger and an eventual attempt at abandonment, which is what he expected. Still, standing here arguing is a waste of time, so Castiel tugs the jacket closer and starts walking.

“What, are you just going to keep strolling till God drops a sign on your sorry head?” Benny calls after him.

“I don’t think God has taken interest in my actions in a long time.”

“Part of me thinks I should just plant my feet here until you give me some answers.” Castiel doesn’t say anything. He trusts a fear of loneliness will bring Benny to his side before too long. You latch onto whatever’s familiar in a terrifying new world. He knows the feeling well.

And sure enough, Benny’s heavier gait falls in beside him before he’s made it half a block.

“You’re the most trying individual I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“I’m aware.”

Though he’s not convinced it’s God’s doing, at least the universe seems to have taken pity on him. They haven’t passed more than one set of streetlights before a large white building can be spotted on the right side of the street, emblazoned with green letters and crosses. CITY UNION MISSION.

“If we haven’t found a way out of the city by tonight, we should be able to get beds there. Though we may have to do some menial work if we want to stay more than one night,” Castiel rattles off. Should he be proud of the fact that he understands the shelter system well now? It’s a social service he’s become well acquainted with since his fall, though he’s been trying to avoid the shelters when he can. There’s too great a chance that talking to anyone, even for the length of time it takes to secure a bed, will get him or some other innocent person killed.

He somehow expects Benny to protest. He’s observed what most people think of these places, stepping to the other side of the street like the proverbial Pharisee as though the scent of poverty will infect their clothing, and though he still doesn’t truly understand this human fear of being associated with the homeless, he cannot deny it’s a nigh universal one. He wouldn’t have been too surprised if Benny sneered a lip at the suggestion.

But Benny stares at the building with more resign than repulsion, too long to be a glance, as though he’s reminiscing on something. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he murmurs and shoves his hands in his pockets, still staring.

How did Benny get along when he was out of Purgatory for all those months? Castiel can’t help but wonder.

So, a place to stay till they can collect enough to move on. That’s a good first step. It’s only money that’s an issue now. And food, but he thinks he can make it another day or so without much, and the shelter is bound to serve a meal nearer to evening. Benny’s vampirism could be a greater problem, but he hasn’t yet seen the man stare hungrily after another person. Maybe he’s too overwhelmed with fresh air to notice the ache of bloodlust in his bones and it’ll become a problem along the road, but they’ll deal with that when they need to. (A small voice reminds him that he’s become a viable meal since the last time they met, which should worry him more than it does.)

Now that they’re here, Castiel’s no longer certain begging is an option. He certainly looks disheveled enough to be believed destitute, but Benny is well-dressed and surprisingly clean for having been yanked out of Purgatory only the night before, still clad in the same clothes Castiel remembers him sporting their entire acquaintance, but without the bloodstains and rips. He won’t attract any sympathy; in fact, it’s more likely he’d scare any passersby away with his scowl. Of course, Castiel could go by himself and leave Benny at the shelter, but he can’t run the risk he’ll come back to find his companion has evaporated into the woodwork. They need to stick together.

He’s already resolved not to commit theft if at all possible, which leaves few options other than wandering around hoping some opportunity will jump up in front of them, or perhaps waiting till evening and asking at the shelter for work. The second is preferable considering how dearly Castiel would like to rest his feet, which are still inexplicably numb like they’ve not yet unfrozen from last night’s chill. However, that leaves a few hours where Castiel will have no escape from any question Benny might pose, and he knows he can’t answer a single one truthfully. Which means keeping them busy is imperative, and more walking, however uncomfortable it might be, is a necessary evil.

“This way,” he says, trying desperately to retain some of that authoritativeness his voice used to command, as though he’s got a destination in mind and Benny need only follow, they’ll end up alright.

Which is the truth, after a fashion. It doesn’t matter how they get to Warsaw. As long as they do, and without great delay, everything will work itself out. He needs to believe that.

Armed with the thought, he takes Benny on an endless circular tour of the industrial centre of Kansas City. Unsurprisingly, there is no work to be found. That’s alright. It’s only where they end up that matters, and Castiel does not once lose track of their destination no matter how many roads they turn down.

They show up on the step of Union City Mission at four thirty sharp, worn out and frustrated and having wasted an entire afternoon, but at least they made it, and all in one piece.

Everything else will come as it will, but at least they made it.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel sits down hard on the cot, the first in a row of ten or so which face the same number against the opposite wall. Benny claims the one beside him. Dinner is in fifteen minutes according to the rather austere lady at the desk, who spoke the words through the pen cap between her teeth – seemingly a permanent adornment there. Everyone else is helping in the kitchen, so they are alone in the room. It sets Castiel on edge, sends alternating sparks of nausea and elation off beneath his ribs.

He had expected Benny to confront him during their search in the afternoon, but the man had only gotten quieter the longer they’d walked. He’d supposed the sullenness to be born of frustration towards himself, but every time he’d glanced over at his companion his eyes were downcast and steadily more melancholy, darkened and sad. He refused to meet Castiel’s gaze, and that was almost as worrisome as the lack of inquiry was welcome.

He’s seen Benny wear all manner of emotions across his face, but he’s never seen his eyes so  _dead_.

“We must be careful to speak to no one,” he says, a reminder to himself and Benny both. Friendliness to strangers is yet another luxury he’s had to surrender in the place of safety. He misses the companionship.

Benny’s only response is a slight nod of assent. To anyone else, it would probably appear he was simply deep in thought, but Castiel has seen this expression many times. He wears the look he did whenever he was about to attempt another argument towards leaving Castiel to rot in Purgatory’s shadows, the same hardened determination that demanded what he opened his mouth to say would be  _heard_ , damnit, even if Dean was too bullheaded to see sense. And there’s still that hint of consolement in his eyes, like he’s coaxing a wounded animal from hiding, promising the cage is far better than death in the wilderness despite its mean appearance. Dean had stood strong against such an expression every time it was brought forward, convinced of his own rightness in bringing Castiel home – oh, how things have changed since those days – and he must try to do the same.

“Do vampires eat human food?” Castiel asks, half out of hopes of delaying the inevitable, and half from genuine curiosity. He’s never had occasion to find out this particular fact.

“Doesn’t hurt us,” Benny murmurs. “But we don’t need it.” Castiel wants to ask if he has what he  _does_  need to survive, but he’ll wait until the other brings it up.

Benny takes a deep breath, then draws himself up and places his hands on his knees, staring at Castiel directly for the first time in hours. “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore than you do, but it’s time everything was out in the open.” There’s a tremor of something beneath his words, a whisper of apprehension, or maybe fear. Castiel does his best to mimic his posture. He nods for Benny to continue.

“All you’ve told me is that we’re going to Warsaw. I know Dean’s friend – don’t remember his name – had a safehouse of some sort there, so Dean and his brother visited fairly often. But you told me in Topeka that Dean wasn’t coming to meet us, so I can only assume we’ll find him there.” Benny clears his throat, taking a moment to glance at the wall and steel himself for whatever he’s about to say next. Castiel waits nervously.

“We’re looking to dig up a body, right?”

Castiel chokes.  _How could he-?_

“You could have just told me from the start. I could have taken it,” Benny says, but the way his hands are visibly shaking tells Cas that no, he probably can’t handle this. Though to be honest, he’d expected him to take it a little better, once he figured it out. He can’t have thought his return would be this easy…

“I would have told you-” he begins, but Benny has already stood and paced to the wall, cutting off the conversation.

Castiel watches his shoulders tremble and a hand lifts to rub his eyes before Benny turns back. He says, voice caught somewhere between anger and the soreness of tears, “You know, it wasn’t just you who cared about him.”

“I know,” he says, perplexed, because isn’t that the whole point? Why would he have bothered with this in the first place if he didn’t truly believe Benny cared for Dean? Why would he-

Oh.

“Benny,” he starts, eyes widening as the realization clears in his mind. “Dean, he’s-”

“Buried six feet under, if I’m right?” He turns away again before Castiel can muster any sort of response. “Damn,” he says, voice shaking only slightly. “That’s a tough break for you, huh?” Something strange and forced emerges from his throat that only barely resembles a laugh. “Did he at least find you, one more time? Before he… he was always looking out for you, I know.” Whatever words of denial Castiel might have said to dispel Benny’s assumptions are choked off by the lump in his throat. “All he wanted was to find you safe, every time you ran off. He spent half his life just lookin’ for you.”

“He’s not-“ Castiel manages to force out. Part of him wants to leave Benny to his delusions. Better than to admit that he finally broke Dean’s faith in him, that faith so stubbornly, foolishly clung to for all those years, that Dean realized what was good for him and tossed him out for good. Better to let Benny believe he died. Better not to have Benny’s anger on him, or worse, his pity. Once he realizes he’s been deceived, it will already be too late for either of those things, and Castiel can tell him the truth then.

But the other part of him looks at the distress in Benny’s eyes, the grief already mounting there like a storm of fire, like Benny is reevaluating his existence and factoring Dean out before his eyes and finding it to be too much and Castiel can’t do that to him, can’t let him believe his best friend is gone, even for just a few days. It’s too cruel, and he’s spent too much time hurting the people in his life through omission.

“Dean’s alive,” he says before he can call the words back.

Benny stares at him, eyes bright, and Castiel ducks his head under the gaze, rubbing at his hands anxiously. He knows now will be the defining moment. If Benny decides he’s going to split and head straight back up the highway, there’s not much he can do to stop him.

“What did you say?”

“He’s in Lebanon, most likely, though if he’s on a case I don’t know exactly where to find him.”

“He’s… oh my god.” The brightening of Benny’s features is beautiful, the way his mouth draws up and the lines around his eyes wrinkle into a joyous expression, and it’s painful to witness in equal measure. Benny smiles like his whole world has been set aright again, and Castiel knows he’s lost his follower. All traces of his power over him are gone, what he thought he had was nothing more than an illusion brought on by mistaken grief and sympathy.

He can’t afford to lose him now, he reminds himself. Stick to whatever flimsy plan he had in place until he’s forced to abandon it.

“Will he- when can we go to Lebanon?” Benny asks expectantly.

“We’ve got a job in Warsaw to finish first. Then…”  _A little lie can’t hurt him too terribly._  “… then we’ll meet up with Dean in the bunker.” He can tell from Benny’s fidgeting he’s aching to ask ‘why not now?’, and he pre-emptively deflects, “It’s a very important mission.”

“They all are,” says Benny warmly. He sits down beside Castiel and flops back onto the cot grinning, the loosest and least controlled Castiel’s ever seen him. Contented, almost. Castiel feels like he’s going to be ill, but he smiles weakly at Benny anyways. He can’t begrudge him a few moments of happiness. “I’m guessing the thing in Warsaw has something to do with me?”

He couldn’t have expected Benny not to figure that out. “Yes.” Before he can ask, Castiel adds, “It concerns the spell I – we,” he amends, remembering Benny’s earlier assumption, “- used to raise you.” He looks over to see Benny’s smile has slid into a frown. “It will be easier to explain when we get there.”

“Alright,” says Benny, and he sits up and claps a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “I trust you,” he says, and chuckles at Castiel’s bemused expression. “Do you honestly think I’d have followed you this far if I didn’t?”

_But why do you?_ is on the edge of Castiel’s lips when the door cracks open and a man with a flyaway beard and fingerless gloves pokes his head in. “Angie sent me to get you two. Dinner’s getting served,” he says before turning on his heel and heading back down the hallway, leaving the door ajar.

“Time to go get some meat back on these bones,” Benny says, and claps a hand heartily on Castiel’s back, which knocks him forward slightly. He recalls that he once had to remind himself to turn his head to spare a punch from shattering Dean’s hand.

Castiel flicks out the light when they leave the room. He remembers to do these things now. He’s adjusting.

Too little, too late it seems.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel hefts another box onto his shoulder and eyes the tall shelf against the wall, trying to decide the best way to maneuver it onto the top level. He knows, from the repeated reminder of the owner, that he’s meant to ‘lift from his knees’, though the mechanics of this style of movement are still somewhat vague to him. But this one needs to go too high; he’ll have to use his shoulders and arms for most of the work, he decides.

He almost thinks he’s got it, but just as the box touches the plywood Castiel feels his balance shift and the cardboard begin to slip from his grasp. In horror, he anticipates the rain of wrenches down on his head, screws his eyes closed-

“Got it!” There’s a solid presence at his back and a pair of arms reach around his head to stop the descent of the box, shoving it forward till it rests securely on the shelf. He breathes a small sigh of relief and turns to find himself looking into twinkling blue eyes.

“Always thought you were the runt of the litter,” Benny says, teasing, and turns to grab his own discarded box from the floor. He lifts it up onto the shelf beside Castiel’s with ease, as if it was full of air and not power drills and bolts.

They’ve been at this for two hours, and his whole upper body aches. Castiel knows that the burn in his arms comes from the muscles there tearing in order to be regrown into stronger and thicker fibres. He rubs his arm absentmindedly, as though his touch could still knit the muscles back together with only a thought.

They need cab fare to move along and from what he’s gathered, about a hundred and fifty dollar will get them where they need to be. Six hours of work stocking shelves in this warehouse at five dollars an hour apiece means three days of work should save them enough to make it to Warsaw, with a little left over besides. He’d rather have some more before they left, knowing that this isn’t the only journey that will require money, but he’s not sure how much time they’ve got left.

It’ll have to do.

At least with some food in him, he’s feeling much improved physically, though his hands still shake from the chill of the poorly insulated building. He’s glad for the physical activity to keep him warmer, at least. Benny refuses to take his jacket back, having proclaimed the moment they walked in the warehouse ‘it’s like a sauna in here’. A strange comment which Castiel can only attribute to his vampiric physiology, considering how frigid the building actually is. The coat’s bulk is welcome, but it interferes with his mobility, making the work even more difficult. Still, he can’t quite bring himself to shrug it off.

“You need a break?” Benny asks.

“We need this money,” he replies, grabbing another box from the cement floor and balancing it on his hip. “We shouldn’t slack off.”

“Lighten up a little. Do you see a supervisor around here anywhere?”

Castiel glances around. There was only one other man who came to work today from the shelter, but he appears to have ducked outside for a smoke break. The owner has long since disappeared. They’ve got the building to themselves.

Shrugging, he sits down on an unopened box and begins rubbing his hands together. It’s only once he sits that he realizes how fast his heart is beating, like he’s been spooked, only the adrenaline won’t quit. Perhaps he really could use a short rest.

Benny crouches down on the floor beside him and he ducks his head between his knees and takes a long breath. In and out. His heartbeat slows somewhat.

“Glad we got the angel you in Purgatory,” Benny says. “Two hours of work tuckering you out? We’d have left you behind for sure.” Castiel lifts his eyes long enough to glare halfheartedly at him before he returns his gaze to the ground. “No offense meant, of course,” he amends, but Castiel speaks before he can say more, his voice every bit as tired as his body.

“You’d have been right to, either way,” he says truthfully. So much could have been prevented…

“Now, don’t go talking like that. I might have fought Dean every step of the way while we were down there, but I’m really glad you made it out. Truly, I am. Which, while we’re on the subject, how did you make it topside? Did Dean use the same spell you used to raise me?”

“No. It was… I was rescued by others. My -” he chokes on the word ‘sister’, “my brethren. Angels. They fought through the barriers to get me out.”

Benny whistles. “That’s a tall order. Somebody up there must really like you.”

_There’s blood everywhere, and it’s on your hands. You’re broken. Worthless._  “I suppose.”

“Glad I had my own guardian angel to speed me along then,” Benny says, bumping his shoulder against Castiel’s. Castiel smiles, and he’s surprised to find he doesn’t have to force it to his lips. There’s an ease of comradeship between them growing, and it feels simple like nothing in Castiel’s life is anymore. No weight of past guilt and betrayal hangs on a pendulum strung between their necks. Benny has no reason to fear or to revile him, and Castiel has no obligation towards Benny, no atonement left to pay for his company. His teasing and his lighthearted jabs aren’t layered with the bitter taste of  _the way things were_. He almost feels like an equal again, a peer. He misses that.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, and means it, and if Benny is surprised by the heavy weight of honesty in his voice, he’s just as much so. “It’s…”  _comforting, needed, more than I deserve after all I’ve done,_ “nice.”

Benny guffaws. “ _Nice?_   Well, I’m glad you esteem my presence so highly!” he says, chortling. “Then again, never thought I’d hear a word of approval out of your mouth regarding me, so I guess it’ll do.”

He opens his mouth to try again, but Benny claps his hand over his parted lips. “Nope. You lost your chance. Moment’s over.” Suddenly, Benny glances over Castiel’s shoulder and he drops his hand, face reddening the slightest amount. Castiel swivels to see the owner with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot and looking very disapproving. “Back to work then,” Benny says with a wink, and pushes himself to his feet.

Castiel does the same, though he needs to take a second to reorient himself as he stands and his head rushes, blacking out his vision momentarily. He wobbles. “Alright?” he hears Benny say distantly. He nods.

He has to be. There are still over 200 boxes to go, and 200 miles of road between them and the end. He can’t afford to be weak now.

“Fine. I’m just fine.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cons of your third flight in a row being delayed by over an hour, pushing your total time spent in airports/airplanes today to a grand total of >13 hours: Complete and utter exhaustion, mildly ominous visual artifacts.  
> Pros: Somehow, against all odds, not breaking my streak of daily chapter releases??
> 
> I guess it works out :)

Castiel watches Benny’s eyelashes flutter and settle, his form melting into a loose heap. When the last trace of movement save the soft rise of his chest has faded, Castiel slips from his cot and pads over to the door. The man in the cot nearest glares at him as the lockset clicks, but he ignores the look and steals into the dim hallway.

There’s a donation bin near the front door with clothes given by the general public. Most of the truly insulating things have been snatched up long ago, but Castiel spied a nice pair of black gloves there when they came in for the night. He can always do with one more layer, though he feels bad taking a hand-me-down another person might use better, or more to the point, longer than he. Still, shaking hands do him no favours when he’s still got two days of lifting heavy boxes ahead of him. He’d rather escape this city without a concussion.

Of course, he could have gotten the gloves after dinner while Benny was at his side, but they’re not the only reason he’s creeping about in the middle of the night. In fact, if the cop procedurals Castiel’s caught snippets of in motel rooms over the years tell the truth, then they might come in handy for the second part of his mission.

Angie’s computer lies silent and cold on the abandoned desk. The PC is old enough that it’s too cumbersome to be moved, which is probably why the Mission doesn’t bother to keep it under any great security. The most that can be said is the monitor is screwed into the desk. Not exactly a foolproof deterrent for a determined thief, but that’s not Castiel’s brand of petty crime tonight.

He turns on the computer, cringing at the bright blue glare of the screen and the nineties jingle of the operating system booting. Of course, there’s a password required, but it’s not an issue. Though he’s lost so many of his other assets since his fall, his attention to detail is not one of them. Castiel closes his eyes and takes a breath as he lets his fingers quickly imitate the sequence of characters he’d seen Angie key when she was logging them in for work that morning, recalling the movement of her hands and willing his to follow the same motions. Though he could not repeat aloud which letters he’d entered, when he presses the cheerful sunflower icon above the password bar the desktop appears. His fingers twitch with pleasure within their new coverings.

Luck is on his side: Angie is organized. A folder labeled  _Check-In_ is in the far right corner and he double clicks it, popping up a spreadsheet. He scans down to find their aliases on the list and, after a quick consultation with the ‘Help’ index, makes quick work of deleting those two rows.

It’s like they were never here. If someone comes asking after the man, or men, who stayed in the shelter on these nights, there’ll be no record of their presence. Maybe he’s being overcautious, and maybe it won’t make a difference anyways, but he doesn’t want Angie – or any other volunteer, for that matter – getting dragged into this whole mess.

His work complete, Castiel saves the file and powers down the computer. He begins to stand, thinking longingly of his cot and sleep.

A soft sound, a subtle  _click_  from the direction of the doorway draws his attention and he drops down to the floor, wary of discovery. He should have waited to do this till the next night, he thinks. At least till he made sure there wasn’t someone who did the rounds. He berates his poor judgement as the soft creak of the door tells him he’s about to be caught if he doesn’t move,  _now_.

The hallway leading back to the sleeping room, and Benny, is only a few feet away, but it’s in direct view of the door. Can he risk it?

There are soft footfalls now, pacing towards the desk. He’s got no choice. He’ll almost certainly be sighted, but if he doesn’t try it won’t matter anyways. If it comes to that, he supposes wearily he can handle one more night on the street. At least he’s got Benny now to huddle beside, though he already laments the loss of the desperately needed work.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, he slides along the floor towards the hallway. The footsteps pause and he risks a glance at the figure looming over the desk. It’s too dark to make out the shape of the person, but the moonlight through the drawn shades catches the glint of something clenched in a shadowy hand. Something silver.

Castiel scrambles backwards, caution lost as fear overtakes him. The figure startles at the sound and turns its head towards him but he’s already on his feet and tearing down the hallway.

They should have found a shelter farther from the station. They shouldn’t have stayed more than a night in the same place. Stupid, stupid. Benny’s presence has lulled his paranoia into dangerous complacency and he curses himself for letting it happen so quickly.  

Castiel throws open the door, heedless of the grumbles from the men he awakens. He rushes to Benny’s bed, tripping over shoes and colliding his hip painfully with the side of a cot in his haste.

His racket wakes Benny before he can even reach him. The man blinks blearily up at him, night vision allowing him to recognize the terror on Castiel’s face even in the darkness. “What’s going on?” he hisses.

“We have to go.  _Now_.” There’s a sound of light footfalls, two pairs at least, coming from the ajar door and moving closer. “Come on,” he says, tugging at Benny’s arm, who sits up and swings his booted feet off the bed and onto the ground. He’s standing when two armed women burst through the doorway.

Castiel grabs his hand and whips him around the corner through the emergency exit at the back of the room, not caring much for where they end up so long as it’s far, far away from his sisters. The same heady adrenaline rushes through his body and fills him with a joyous, sickening burst of power that might feel like flying, if he could remember the sensation clearly.

They burst through another door and into an enclosed area. High fences border the yard which is empty but for a few sheds lining the outside. A storage area, perhaps, but a death trap for them. The feeling of hopelessness is overwhelming and Castiel sags against Benny, throat burning painfully.

Benny looks back at the doorway. “No way out.” Castiel shakes his head. “Then we’ll improvise,” he says, and drags Castiel towards one of the sheds.

“I don’t-” he starts.

“Up you get.” That’s all the warning Castiel gets before hands close hard on his hips and boost him until he’s high enough to clamber atop the sloping roof. He turns and reaches a hand down to Benny, who takes it and with one mighty leap ends up at Castiel’s side. He’s seen Benny climb trees in Purgatory with the same sort of graceful strength and he’s grateful now as the two angels emerge from the exit door and zero in on them that he’s not lost that litheness here on Earth, or they’d both be dead. He doesn’t think even a vampire could take on both silver blades without a weapon of his own, though he’s sure Benny would go down fighting till the last.

Hiding on this roof won’t save them, which means the only option is down. Unfortunately,  _down_  is a seven foot drop over a fence onto solid pavement, but he doesn’t have much time to consider the possible pain of the impact before Benny yells “Go!” and he leaps from the shed’s roof.

He hits the ground in a roll, thousands of years of soldier’s instinct taking control of his body’s movements and allowing him to land without any major injury – though only after the adrenaline wears off will he be able to judge if he’s escaped entirely free of damage. Seconds later, a thud and an ‘oof’ tell him that Benny’s made it over the fence as well.

“Who the hell-”

“No time,” Castiel says with heaving lungs as he stands. “We need…” he starts, but finds he’s lost the end of the sentence.

Where can they go? They can’t outrun the angels, which means their only option is to hide, but where? Why can’t he  _think_? All the blood is rushing in his head and it drowns every coherent thought and he sways, suddenly dizzy. Benny catches him with an arm around his waist before he can drop to the pavement.

“Warehouse?” Benny suggests, face too bright to be lit with only the moon and Castiel blinks rapidly, trying to clear his vision. It must be the streetlight’s glare, he thinks hazily, before the brightness is replaced by black spots, and then Benny’s face is gone entirely, and there’s nothing but darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

There’s a light glimmering in the distance. Castiel reaches out his hand towards it, but it’s just beyond the reach of his fingertips. He draws himself inwards, unfurling his wings, readying for flight, but instead his stomach drops and he’s falling, falling and he’s going to be smashed into a thousand pieces on the pavement and scattered to the wind, he’s going to die…

“Shhhh!” He takes a deep, rattling breath and crushes the cry at the back of his throat. The swooping in his stomach stops but he still curls inward, pulling away from the ground with all his might. There’s one thought, drowsy and drowning all others, that he has to  _hide_ , and he presses himself into the warm thing at his side, tucking his head into the crevasse until he feels something cold and hard brush his temple. A hand, tentative at first, ghosts over his hair and he slumps as the anxiety slowly seeps from his body, till the nauseating dread is only pressing and not overwhelming. His eyes open.

“Back with me?” Benny’s voice is hushed, wary. Castiel nods, turning his head so it’s no longer wedged beneath Benny’s arm. He tries to sit up, biting back a soft sound at the sharp pain which jumps from his right shoulder to his wrist as he braces himself on the floor. Benny’s arm still rests heavily around his shoulders and he wants to move it, the burning increasing with every second of its weight, but instead he leans slightly to relieve some of the pressure. His dream is still too vivid and the contact’s all he’s got to hold onto. He’s found that nightmares have the worst way of layering themselves so that even the escape of waking seems like a cruel deception. He can’t be sure this isn’t just another level of illusion.

“You scare the daylights out of me sometimes,” Benny says so softly Castiel almost doesn’t catch the words, like they’re not meant for his ears. But no, that’s not it. They have to stay quiet.  They’re hiding, though the reason why is fuzzy. He glances around and finds he can’t see a thing, not even the outline of Benny’s form. There’s only blackness and silence and the panic growing faster than he can control and he lurches forward, tearing at the darkness frantically because they’re trapped and he can’t fly away-

His fingertips graze something rough and papery before strong arms grab him around the middle and haul him back. This time he does cry out, the rough hold jarring his shoulder so badly that he can’t hold it in, but just as quickly Benny’s hand clamps over his mouth. “Quiet!” he whispers harshly, and Castiel breathes hard through his nose. He tries to remember these are Benny’s hands on him, not Metatron’s slimy fingers pushing back his hair, not Alistair’s hand crawling its way across the base of his scalp. He closes his eyes, and lets the dream fade, and falls backwards.

A few moments pass. His head clears. He’s awake. He’s certain of it now.

Sometimes it gets like this. It’s just that usually he wakes up alone, or amongst other people whose screams into the night cover his own cries as the nightmares pass. The shift when there’s another person beside him is… disconcerting.

He breathes in and out, like cartoons have taught him, like he’s seen Sam ask panicking victims to do when they’ve gotten hysterical. Benny’s heart is thumping behind him, its rhythm too rapid but still steadier than his and he focuses on matching his inhales with the body behind him until his heart slows to the same rate.

When he feels steady enough, he raises his left arm and pushes Benny’s hand away. “I’m alright,” he mutters, embarrassment winning out over the fear for the moment. “Sorry.”

A fumbling hand curls around his fingers and squeezes them: an acknowledgement and a pardon. “I haven’t heard anything for hours,” Benny whispers back, and for a moment Cas is confused at what he’s talking about, but he remembers soon enough. The Mission. A woman with a silver sword in her hand. Jumping seven feet off a roof. “I think we’re alright. Heard someone snuffling around here a while ago, but since we’re both still in one piece I think they missed us.”

“Where are we?” Castiel croaks. His throat aches, as does his stomach. How long has it been?

“Managed to get us to the warehouse alright before those crazies could make it back out the front entrance. I holed us up behind some boxes.” He still can’t see a thing, but he fancies he can hear a grin in Benny’s voice. “Not my best constructed fort, but it seems to have done us alright. You’ve gotta stop collapsing though. I’m starting to think this is your equivalent of dropping me a handkerchief.”

Any trace of mirth fades out of his voice. “You’re not doing good,” he says, chiding. The words leave no room for denial. “I’ve bit my tongue for a few days now, but you’re fading and it’s more than just a few days of not eating right and cold could have done to you.”

There’s a fluttering overhead. A bird, perhaps, trapped in the building. Castiel thinks of winged messengers and shudders. He doesn’t answer the unasked question.

Once he sees he’ll get no response, Benny says reluctantly, “We should keep quiet for a bit. Just to be sure you didn’t rustle up anything with your, you know. Morning routine.”

Castiel runs his fingers up and down the seam of his pant leg and tries to reason out a strategy through the panicked thoughts still threatening to choke his breath. He hopes his eyes adjust soon. He doesn’t like the emptiness. It amplifies… everything else.

More of the angels have caught up to him, which means this city isn’t safe. The fact that they haven’t been detected in this hideout is nothing short of a miracle considering it’s within two blocks of the shelter, and Benny can’t have been that fast moving with a body to lug. Castiel can’t parse out how it’s possible they escaped, but he leaves it for a moment, other thoughts needing more urgent attention.

They have the money from today’s – yesterday’s? – work, tucked beneath Castiel’s socked foot. Enough for them to survive a day or so in the city. Staying in another shelter is out of the question; they’re all bound to be watched. They should probably swap clothes as soon as possible, since their pursuers could recognize them easily now in their familiar garb.

His stomach rumbles loudly and he presses a hand to it, ducking his head between his knees and curling forward to try and stymie the dangerous sound. Food’s another thing he needs, though perhaps that’s less pressing. The pain in his stomach doesn’t feel so bad in comparison to his shoulder. It might be dislocated, though he has only a theoretical knowledge of the injury, not a sensational one, so he can’t be certain.

They sit in silence until light begins to creep into the room, thin streams that pass through the cracks between the boxes stacked in front of them.

“Guess the foxes outsmarted the wolves tonight,” Benny says, louder now. Castiel too feels more confident with the evidence of morning upon them. Benny stands and offers a hand to Castiel, who takes it and rises slowly, mindful to keep his other arm clasped to his side. “You good to walk?”

He’s not altogether certain but he nods anyway. Benny shoves the boxes aside and they make it to the door, though they have to pause every few feet as Castiel’s vision swims and he stumbles.

This would be the point where Castiel would be saying  _leave me, save yourself_ , if he thought it would do any good. He wonders if Benny would leave him as easily now as he wanted to in Purgatory. Probably not. He’s Benny’s only link to Dean, which means he’s still valuable to the man. It explains why he’s so concerned about Castiel’s health. Can’t have his roadmap of Lebanon dying before it produces Dean’s true location. The thought is equal parts comforting and depressing.

He expects to be jumped the moment they exit the building but to his great surprise, there’s nothing but the sunshine of mid-morning and a few people walking down the street. They’re all going in one direction, and his eyes follow their movement till he sees a crowd of people gathered at the corner where City Union Mission stands. Though it’s two blocks away, even from here he can make out the shape of an ambulance and see the flashing red and blue of police cars blocking off the area around the building.

“There’s a Salvation Army around the corner,” Castiel says. “We need new clothes.” Benny doesn’t argue. He’s staring down the street with his mouth pursed into a grimace. A siren blares and another cop car pulls up from a side street. A policeman jumps out and pushes his way through the onlookers.

“Do you know who’s coming for us?”

Now’s not the time to explain about Metatron and angels falling and Castiel’s part in it (and he wishes with all his might that the time would never come, though he knows he can’t avoid the subject forever). He answers with a simple, “Yes,” and turns away from the crowd of people. “I’ll tell you when we’re somewhere safer.”

“Safer from what, I wonder.” Benny’s voice holds notes of frustration but he doesn’t press, and he offers his right arm for Castiel to lean on. Castiel stops searching the shadows between buildings for enshrouded figures and takes it gratefully.

Though the wolves may be nipping at its heels, the fox feels a little less afraid with a mountain lion shadowing its steps.

They turn the corner and leave the Mission and its gaggle of concerned citizens behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone :)


	9. Chapter 9

The door of the Salvation Army chimes when Benny pushes it open and the sound, mixed with the bright light of morning, makes Castiel’s head ache – like a hangover, only more persistent in its distraction than the one or two he’s experienced. The volunteer at the front counter is engrossed in a small television in the corner of the store and doesn’t seem to notice their entrance. They slip into the rear of the store before she gets a chance.

There are racks and racks of clothing, each more intimidating than the next. Castiel doesn’t pick out clothes; he takes what’s available and free. He passes a hand over the jackets, feeling each fabric slide into the next. Cotton, polyester, leather. What would be warm, but cheap? They don’t have much time to choose. Is a new outer layer enough, or should they be looking for shirts, pants? Can they afford that kind of money with only sixty or so dollars saved? They’re at the point now where stealing might be the only feasible option, except that they’ve got no bag to smuggle anything out in and having the police called on them would likely draw any pursuing angel who was paying the slightest bit of attention.

Part of him wants to lean forward and rest his head against the metal of the coat rack, give the black specks in his vision a moment to settle and gain back the balance he’s lost ( _he needs to eat something soon or he’s going to faint again_ ) but they don’t have the time, and he’s afraid if he stops now he’ll never leave this spot.

“Choose,” he says after a few moments of staring, blinking furiously to stave off the burning behind his eyes. He can’t do this, not today, not one more human ritual to suss out with only minutes to spare, he needs  _something_  to be easy. It’s a little thing, such a little thing, but right now he just… he can’t.

Benny just looks at him, worried, and he resists the urge to knock something over, to pinwheel his arms in frustration that he can’t even do this simple task. He loathes the inscrutability of human emotions. All he needs is just a few minutes of his old steadiness, the only state he could fathom before his fall, and now picking a coat makes him want to shove himself in a corner and hide and he doesn’t know  _why._

Since Benny seems more concerned with staring instead of doing what he asked, Castiel grabs a green suede jacket off the rack – ragged and adorned with a fringe of hanging threads – and shoves it into Benny’s arms. He has no idea if it’s close to either of their sizes.  He’s not even certain what size he is, since the pants which once clung to his skin now need a belt to keep from sliding off his hips.

He’s probably guessed wrong, because Benny places the hanger gently back on the rack and takes its neighbour, a brown leather ensemble. It’s heavy and lined and the fabric is softened from overuse. It’s far too expensive for their purposes, twenty dollars at least, but Benny presses it into his arms and he wants it, wants it with an ache that has the frustrated tears threatening to spill over and it’s another thing he cannot understand.

He doesn’t put it back on the rack.

Benny moves towards the shirts and Castiel asks, “Don’t you need one too?” Benny’s black jacket still hangs loose around his own shoulders.

“I’m fine. Sun’s too hot for me this time of year anyway.” Castiel wants to protest that it’s nearing December but the evidence is in the thin stream of sweat glistening behind Benny’s ear: he’s not being courteous or self-sacrificing, he really is that warm.

Shirts are chosen in short order. Light grey jersey for Benny, an olive Henley for Castiel: inconspicuous colours, ones that will blend easily into a crowd. He doesn’t dare look at the price tags on anything but he’s quite certain that pants are out of the question, he’s not even sure they can afford what they’ve got in their arms.

Benny pulls him into a dressing room before he can voice his concerns. The space is too small to fit one person comfortably, let alone two grown men. Benny’s elbows knock into his torso as he hastily pulls off his linen shirt and throws it onto the bench, tugging on the new shirt in its place. It’s not a great fit and pulls tight against his broad chest but they don’t have time to find another. Castiel wishes they’d left ten minutes earlier already. The feeling of enclosure from the small space grows and starts to suffocate him and he shrinks into the corner.

“Hurry up!” Benny scolds as he pulls his old shirt back on overtop of the new one and Castiel understands now what they’re doing. Provided the shopkeeper didn’t get a good look at them she shouldn’t be able to tell they’ve each gained an extra layer in their time in the store. He shrugs the jacket off and goes to pull his own shirt over his head, but he lets out a surprised yelp at the stab of pain that accompanies trying to lift his right arm.

“Shit.” Benny’s closer now, gripping a hand to Castiel’s waist to keep him steady as he gingerly prods his shoulder. Each movement of his fingers draws a quick exhale from Castiel as he tries to keep himself quiet. The last thing they need is for the volunteer to notice they’ve both disappeared and draw unsavoury conclusions from the whimpers coming out of the occupied dressing room.

“How bad?”

“I don’t know. It hurts,” Castiel admits.

“May I?” Benny asks as he moves the hand on his waist lower to lift the bottom of Castiel’s t-shirt slightly, and he’s so polite about it that Castiel wants to laugh. They’ve dressed each other’s wounds countless time in the past and clothing was torn off without so much as a ‘by your leave’. There was no time for courtesy.  He nods his assent, not quite able to keep the smile off the corner of his lips.

“What?” Benny asks, narrowing his eyes.

“You’re a real gentleman.”

“Yeah, apart from the fangs and the slaughter I’m a regular Mr. Darcy, can we get on with this?” But his mouth is quirking up too as he maneuvers Castiel’s shirt over his shoulders.

The bruise on his shoulder is purple and red and ugly. It’s not that much worse than others he’s had before, but by Benny’s wince he can tell it’s bad enough.  He doesn’t ask this time; Benny raises his hands and begins to massage at the bruise, feeling for breaks and tears. The room suddenly feels even smaller.

Though every place Benny’s hands do not touch still feels chilled, inexplicably Castiel feels the prick of perspiration beneath his arms. He tries to rebalance and ends up taking a step back. His back hits the wall with a  _clunk_  and Benny follows, too close. Not close enough, Castiel’s body seems to scream, and he thinks of April and confined spaces and how he should be afraid but instead he just feels  _warm_.

The brush of stubble against his cheek tingles as Benny leans in and he can’t help himself, he rests his cheek against it. Benny’s movements hitch momentarily but soon he’s back to the inspection and Castiel drops his head down until it’s nestled in the crook of Benny’s neck, breath ghosting over the pulse point there. He presses his hands into the wall behind him to keep them from reaching out to bring Benny closer, to get more – more contact, more heat, more of this feeling that isn’t pain or fear or shame. The air feels heavy around him.

Eyes shut, he lets Benny twist and prod the muscle as he wants. The hurt dulls while his mind drifts.

“Doesn’t look dislocated, just strained,” Benny concludes, and his hands drop away, lingering about Castiel’s hips . He’s sure this is a social cue for something or other but in the pleasant haze he’s not too concerned with what, happy to remain right where he is.

Finally, Benny pushes him away gently. “You didn’t fall asleep on me, did ya?” He shakes his head and opens his eyes to find Benny staring at him strangely. Everything feels bright and clear, like he’s dipped his head in cold water and come out refreshed. He feels keen and alert and ready to make plans. The stumbling wretch who inhabited this body only a few minutes ago seems a distant memory.

“We need to hurry,” he says, clearing his throat. While the haze has faded, the warmth hasn’t. They’re still too close. This situation is ‘awkward’, if Benny’s expression is anything to go on. He’s crossed some sort of line (though his mind reminds him than it was Benny who moved too close first). “Help me.”

He holds up the t-shirt and Benny gets it over his head and shoulders and passes him the black coat, still eying him with a look like he’s trying to puzzle something out. He doesn’t move away even once he’s fully dressed.

“I want to know what’s going on in that stubborn head of yours.”

Castiel frowns and doesn’t answer. He tries to push past to open the door but Benny bars the path, not threatening but firm.

“You’re too thin for being taken care of, you look ready to bolt at the slightest breeze, you won’t answer a single damn thing I ask. Now, I said I trust you, but trust only goes so far. And so do I, until you give me something to go on.” Again, Castiel tries to get past, but it’s hopeless. Benny is immovable. “So unless you tell me one thing,  _one thing_ that I ask, we’re not leaving this store.”

“We don’t have time for this,” he hisses. They’ve been in this room far too long.

“Who’s hunting you?”

“When we get away from here-”

“No. Not good enough. Tell me now, or I leave your sorry ass to those harpies.”

There’s nothing for it then. “Angels.”

“Angels are hunting us?” Benny’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Not us. Me.”

“Because you’re depowered?”

“Because I’m the reason they’re stuck here.”

“And by stuck here, you mean…?”

“They can’t leave. I trapped them here. On earth. They can’t go back to Heaven.”

Benny’s eyes widen. His look moves from surprise to incredulity as he reasons out the implications of this admission. “ _Why?_ No offence, but everything I’ve heard about angels says they aren’t creatures that do well in prisons. What kind of fool sense does it make to lock them up where all they have to play with is humans?”

“I didn’t do it intentionally!” The urge to speak above a whisper is overwhelming, but they can’t go drawing attention, even if it’s just from a bored high school student in a blue vest. “I was… deceived. I thought I was doing something good.” Even to his own ears, the words sound pathetic. Of course, he was  _trying_ to do something good. Isn’t that always his excuse, after he burns bridge after bridge, brings suffering to thousands? It’s all in the name of good, who can blame him when the world burns because of it?

“Yeah, and I’m guessing your family ain’t too pleased with that explanation.”

He can’t help but snort. “An understatement.”

“There’s more to this story, clearly.”

“Which I’ll explain at a later date now  _please_. We have to leave.”

Apparently satisfied for the moment, Benny unlocks the door and steps out. Castiel follows, carrying the leather jacket.

The volunteer is still watching the morning news behind the counter. Benny raps his knuckles on the glass to get her attention. She apologizes, a distracted smile on her face, and takes the jacket from Castiel’s arm. “Sorry, it’s just-” her smile fades, “It was only a few blocks from here, you know? I can’t believe it.” Castiel glances over at the screen. Late 30’s. Male. Unidentified. Stabbed through the chest. A brief clip of a gurney being rolled away, neatly combed hair peaking out from beneath the blue blanket, rolls again and again.

Another person dead because of him.  There’ll be time later for guilt over whatever homeless man he unintentionally let die last night, but for now, they’ve got to get out of here. He slides a crumpled twenty dollar bill across the counter, and the girl focuses on the pair of them for the first time. She bites her lip as she takes it.

She’s nervous, and Castiel feels suddenly self-conscious. Is there any trace of blood on his clothing? He wouldn’t be surprised if there was, the past few weeks considered, and he’s dealt with suspicion enough just for his appearance even without a killer loose on the streets nearby.

“Thank you,” he says, trying to inject as much friendliness into his tone as possible, even adding a little half smile which seems to scare her even more. It appears that for all his attempts to emulate, he still hasn’t gotten the hang of comforting expressions.

He pulls the jacket on as they exit the store. It’s wonderfully warm and soft to the touch; far too big on him, but he doesn’t care. Its smell is familiar, an accompaniment to gunpowder and ash. He zips it and tries not to remember where he’s smelled it before.

“Where to?” Benny asks.

“Far from here.” He wishes he could give a more precise answer.

“Well,” says Benny, scratching his chin, “if we’re going far, we better get some food in you first. Last night was the last time I’m playing pack mule, alright?”

“Understood.”

As they set out down the road, away from the Mission, Castiel swears he hears the tread of light footsteps pick up behind them. He turns, but it’s nothing more than a sign thumping against a building in the wind. They soon disappear into the crowd of people on a busier street, and he puts the sound from his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favourite chapter to write of the whole story :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude of sorts, from Benny's POV.

There’s a dry wind blowing through the park. It rattles the abandoned swings and stirs up the sand beneath them. Castiel startles at their movement, eyes ever searching the growing darkness as he tears bites off his hamburger and places them in his mouth carefully. He seems to think he’s being discreet. Benny knows better. He’s seen the look of starvation too often to be sure if it wasn’t for the paranoia he’d have stuffed the whole thing in his mouth a minute ago, manners be damned.

What was it that Dean had said, days before they stumbled upon their grail crouching by the riverbed?  _When we find him_ – always a when, never an if with Dean –  _he might… he wasn’t really there completely, when we got thrown down here. He did something, something for me and my brother, that messed with his head real bad. Just… don’t take it out on him._  But despite his warnings, the angel had been of sound mind as far as Benny could tell, if surly and difficult to persuade towards common sense (though no more so than Dean ever was). Whatever affliction Dean remembered in his friend, Purgatory’s scourge had cleansed it from him.

Looking at the haggard and fearful creature before him, Benny wonders if he might not be seeing a shade of the madness Dean feared.

They’ve gone as far as Castiel can manage tonight, straight into the heart of the city till the factories bled into quiet suburban streets. The walking is not something Benny thinks he’ll ever tire of. Every step of his bounces with energy, with that ecstatic knowledge that if he sees a forest looming before him, he can turn and run the opposite direction and never look back. He can’t help but cherish the openness of the city streets, the air smelling of exhaust and perfume and cool air and not of decay and blood. He loves the unblemished sky with all its variance in hue, no more grey-green sickness always casting a shade over things that might have been beautiful, once. Even the sun seems to have offered him an uneasy truce, its burn lessened since the last time he walked the earth to the point that he rarely notices it. Maybe he’s grown more accustomed to pain.

Walking’s also given him a lot of time to think.

Dean isn’t here with Castiel, isn’t involved in this strange rescue mission at all, and what’s more seems completely out of contact with him. Benny reasons this can mean one of three things.

The first possibility is this: Castiel was lying about Dean being alive. While perhaps plausible, it’s not a prospect he wants to consider. He disregards it uneasily.

The second: Dean told Castiel to hit the road. That Benny can’t believe, not after Purgatory, not after the man was willing to give his life and his freedom to rescue a creature who was perfectly content to be left in his misery.

Castiel said they’d go to Dean when they finished whatever errand he’s embarked on, but Benny isn’t stupid, and Castiel is one of the worst liars he’s met. It’s clear he has no intention of going back to Lebanon after they finish whatever it is they’re meant to do in Warsaw. Which leaves the third option.

Castiel is running from Dean. For whatever reason (and he’d be shocked if it wasn’t a ridiculously self-sacrificial one) he’s decided staying out of Dean’s life is for the best. Probably something to do with the trapped angels. Whatever his crime is, he’s on the run from more than just the host of heaven. He’s putting distance between them and Lebanon.

There’s a bomb incoming. Castiel is shifting the target.

Benny sits back against the slide he’s perched on, watching his companion on the ground attempt to both hold his morsel of food and clutch the neck of his new jacket closed to keep out the wind. The red plastic beneath him is chilled from the evening air but he doesn’t feel it.

Castiel is running, probably has been for a long time if the state of his clothes and his body are anything to go on. It’s the same story as Purgatory. Seems even here Castiel is the lure that draws the monsters out of their holes. Angels, leviathan, it doesn’t matter. He’ll make sure, till the end, that they’re nowhere near Dean.

Only here on Earth, in a human body and a fraying one at that, that goal might very well be the end of him.

The sun is setting. Benny has been staring at Castiel for minutes now but he doesn’t seem bothered by it, content to eat and watch for signs of pursuers. When Castiel finishes his burger and swipes the last dregs of ketchup off its wrapping, Benny hands the paper sack down to him.

“Not hungry,” he offers as explanation, and he isn’t. Vampires don’t need food, but he insisted on the second burger all the same. Castiel is too worried about the money; he would never have bought two for himself, no matter how much he needed the nourishment.

As for the other hunger… well, he’s not denying that it’s strange he hasn’t felt its power since his return. He should be raving with it by this point. In that dressing room, with Castiel’s entire upper body exposed, extreme proximity and him all but collapsing into Benny, resting skin against skin and every heartbeat bare in the confined space till it was all Benny could hear, all he could feel in his chest… by all rights it should have ended with a puddle of blood on the floor.

Nothing. No bloodlust, no fangs, no animal instinct.  A different sort of hunger, perhaps, one that comes from years of solitude and nothing but a blade for company, and not a scrap of affection to cling to. The kind of hunger it doesn’t do to dwell on.

He drops his gaze to his hands. He always got the most unnerving impression that the angel could peek into his thoughts if he had the desire to.

Of course, he isn’t an angel anymore. That’s the whole crux of the problem, isn’t it? It’s the only reason he’s still here, after all, instead of hightailing down the highway to find the people – person – he knows for certain actually give a damn about him, who aren’t lying to him in the way he’s certain Castiel is. It’s this pull that he gets every time he looks at Castiel’s sorrowful face, drawn with the burden of a human life he was never meant to lead. It’s almost like protectiveness.

Why he should feel suddenly protective of Castiel, he doesn’t know. Without him, Benny would be more than able to take care of himself. He’s lived so much of his life alone, he certainly doesn’t someone by his side. Even if he was starved for companionship he hasn’t forgotten his hard-earned tracking skills; he could find Dean himself easily enough. In fact, he’d probably be far safer if Castiel was out of the picture.

But there’s something that turns his stomach in the idea of leaving him alone and vulnerable. He hadn’t had much care for the angel Castiel, sure and heated and with a stick up his ass the size of Alabama. Too much ire and righteousness to be anything but an annoyance, an intruder in Benny’s domain. But in this human named Castiel it’s easier to see the tiredness behind the façade of surety, the endearing quirks stifled under constant threat, the painfully transparent honesty behind his  _thank you_ ’s to the people who’ve helped them along the way.

This human Castiel feels like something worth saving.

Benny drops out of thought to find the subject of his musings has fallen asleep, his head resting against the edge of the slide and half-finished burger fallen into the sand. With his mouth softened and face lined and hair all askew, he seems both impossibly old and unbearably young at once. Benny feels his heart pang in empathy.

He’s a creature who’s lived long beyond his time, and while his limbs have never felt stronger and more alive, there’s a part of him that wonders if he might not have outgrown what made life worth living. He’s tired in soul, not in mind or body. Castiel seems to have exhausted all three.

He thinks maybe this journey is worth the undertaking, even if he never sees Dean again, even if he dies with the sword of an angel in his back. If he can give Castiel just a little piece of rest with his presence, it’s the least he can do. After all, he’s given him a few days of fresh air. That means plenty.

Benny jumps down from the slide and gathers Castiel up in his arms like he did that first night, when all he could do was mutely follow his messiah, too taken aback to question his return properly. Castiel’s breathing evens out as he’s lifted, settling from a slow drag to a contented exhale. He curls closer to Benny’s body even in sleep and Benny can’t help but hold him tighter in return. It’s been too long since anything’s touched him without murderous intent, and he’s not too ashamed to admit to himself that he craves it.

There’s a hollow tube of plastic where children play during the daylight. It’s not much, but it’s out of the wind, which will have to be enough for tonight. He maneuvers his cargo into the space, all the while debating whether he’d be better to sit guard at one mouth of the structure or to crawl in after him and provide warmth to a body which desperately needs it, maybe even catch an hour or two of sleep himself.

He knows which option is the more inviting, but he’s grown accustomed to choosing survival over comfort, so watch duty it is.

Benny’s half drifted off when the soft sound of shifting sand catches his ear. He leans over, keeping his movement slow and hopefully inconspicuous. There’s something creeping about the opposite side of the play structure; he can just make out the slim shadow of a figure slinking from one bar to the next.

No time to wake Castiel. There’ll be no point to fleeing: the enemy is too close. This is a fight or die situation.

He longs for the heavy weight of his knife in his hand as he swings silently down onto the ground. The shadow is gone, but the shallow indents in the sand prove he wasn’t imagining its presence.

There are two entrances to the cylinder and only one body to guard them. Even if he chooses rightly and cuts off the attacker, the shadow probably has brothers and sisters waiting in the darkness. Regardless of his choice, it’s likely he’ll be seeing the forest again before the sun rises.

It was a good run while it lasted, he thinks, and sprints in the direction of the footprints.

There’s nothing at this end of the structure. He whirls, praying not to see a spirit slipping into the tunnel from the other side, but there’s nothing there either. Whatever vision he saw, it’s disappeared.

The tip of something icy and sharp pricks at the small of his back. A slender hand slips over his mouth, its grip improbably strong and utterly immovable.

“Quiet,” a soft voice hisses. He tries to take a step forward, to swing around and dislodge the hand and scream with all his might for Castiel to  _run!_ but before he can parse what’s happened he’s on his knees in the sand, the blade of the silver knife now tracing his chin and the hand gripped in his hair.

“Please don’t fight me.” The tone is undemanding, almost placating. Benny wills Castiel to wake, to run. He feels like Isaac, praying the ram will have the good sense to escape the bush before another angel comes to pluck its life away. He keeps his eyes far from the place where Castiel rests. Though there’s no hope his captor doesn’t know of his presence, it’s not good to draw attention. He relaxes his body in the best imitation of surrender he can muster.

The hand disappears, though the blade remains firmly lodged beneath his chin as a pair of jean-clad legs comes into view. Before he can strain his eyes upwards, the body drops down to his level, and he finds himself staring into the face of one of their female attackers from the shelter. Her light brown hair is cropped messily so that it hangs over her eyes; he can’t read their expression. Young and enveloped in a sweater with sleeves so long one risks falling over the hilt the blade in her hand, she doesn’t look like much of a threat at a glance, but the worst things rarely do. Even as he evaluates, cataloguing her gestures and searching for weaknesses, she reaches her free hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. An involuntary tic, leftover from her vessel?

She makes no move, and though she keeps her head tilted so Benny can’t see her eyes he imagines they’re sizing him up just the same.

Finally, she speaks again. “You’re a friend of Castiel’s?”

“I wouldn’t call us friends.”

“Don’t be coy.”

“I’d be much more forthcoming if you removed the sword from my neck.”

“Who are you?”

“A pilgrim. Who are you?”

She looks up and for the first time he glimpses her eyes. He can see why she’d try to keep them covered: they betray her. The nervousness is there for anyone to see.

“My name is Ruth,” she says. “Don’t be afraid.”

“For you bring glad tidings of great joy?”

She shakes her head slowly, her eyes wandering to a point in the darkness behind Benny.

“For we have much to discuss.”


	11. Chapter 11

Benny’s gone when Castiel awakens. He drags himself out of the plastic cylinder, aching and puffing in the cool morning air, to find himself facing an empty playground under the light of dawn.

He tries to soothe the panicked thoughts before they can overwhelm his better sense. It’s not possible that their pursuers could have caught up in the night, or else how would he still be alive? And Benny wouldn’t just abandon him without a word.

Would he?

He thinks back on the night before. He’d seemed pensive, but Castiel had been too focused on food and exhaustion to pay it much attention. Obviously a mistake. Benny’s probably halfway to the Greyhound station right now, ready to buy his ticket back to Dean and safety and freedom from his yoke of responsibility. He’ll be moving quickly without the deadweight dogging his steps: there’s no way he can catch him.

Castiel sits down hard on the steps. He leans his head against the cool wood of the support beam and lets his dark hair fall into his eyes. He thinks he should be afraid, but instead his heart feels far too heavy to muster any emotion beyond dull despair. He’s failed, and there’s no going back. He’s got nothing but a broken down body and a failed mission and an almost-friend who was just biding his time till circumstances were better for him to split. He blows into his hands and rubs them together, and thinks if there was ever a time for tears, this was it, but he can’t see the point to weeping. He never has before.

It’s almost a relief, if a cruel one. It doesn’t matter what he does now, doesn’t matter where he goes. Maybe the angels will catch up but he’s got his sword and reason enough to push it through his chest before they can do worse.

There’s a chirping in the distance, the call of the morning birds. This one sounds familiar, like the blue jays in the garden of the institution. He thinks of Meg, and wonders if she ever found herself a cause worth serving, wonders if she saw his current state whether she’d still want to move furniture or if she’d laugh in his face, disgusted by his weakness.

But she’d cared for him once, when Dean and Sam left to deal with bigger problems than his sanity, when he was every bit as weak as this. If then, why not now?

A wry chuckle forces its way out of his closed throat. What strange circumstances his actions have led him to. Would that God had ever existed and could look down on a fallen angel and his nursemaids: a demon and a vampire. The strangest stories were never told in the holy word.

“What’re you smiling about?”

A sack of something warm and smelling strongly of hot sauce lands in his lap. Castiel glances up over his shoulder to find its deliverer leaning with his arms crossed against a beam.

Though his heart beats abnormally quickly in his chest, he doesn’t cry, “you came back,” with pathetic gratitude (he’s still got some pride within him), nor does he throw his arms around his neck like a child (Sam’s admonition from years ago somehow still manages to sour the thought). Instead, he drags himself to his feet and puts a hand on Benny’s shoulder and squeezes gently, blinking fast enough to keep the burning behind his eyelids at bay. If the way Benny’s eyes crinkle around the edges and the heavy hand placed on his own shoulder is any indication, he understands.

“Found us some work. You can eat on the way,” Benny says. The relief at not being abandoned is profound enough to keep Castiel from prying into how the man managed to acquire employment in such a short stretch of time. He staggers after Benny, cramming the breakfast sandwich into his mouth with newfound enthusiasm as they walk.

The shop owner Benny apparently met in the wee hours of the morning sets them to work carting case after case of spirits out her cellar. Judging by the dusty and slightly mildewed state of the shop, Castiel wouldn’t be surprised if not a single customer has set foot in it in months, but the grizzled old woman seems cheerful enough despite her failing business. She doesn’t mind in the slightest that after he nearly drops a dozen litres of vintage Sauvignon down the steps, he spends the rest of the day organizing on grimy shelves whatever bottles Benny places at his feet. He’s glad for that on more than one account: it saves his shoulder and helps ease his mind to be able to watch the street for suspicious characters.

It only takes an hour or two for Castiel’s paranoia to ease and his glances toward the street to become half-hourly, rather than minute by minute. He glowers as Benny teases him for not knowing whether gin belongs near the bourbon or the chartreuse. He laughs softly when Benny examines a bottle of Sourpuss with a look that says only too clearly he doesn’t fancy the creative liberties this younger generation of humanity has taken with alcohol. This one, at least, he knows how to categorize: Dean bought him a bottle once, a long time ago. He told Castiel with a sly grin it reminded him of the angel. He’d frowned back, perplexed, which only made Dean laugh harder. The drink was too sweet for his taste, but he liked the silly cat cartoon and the thought, no matter how mocking, behind the gift enough to stash it in his Appalachian alcove of earthly treasures.

The thought that someone might find that cache someday, since it seems he’ll never get a chance to retrieve his things, and be every bit as perplexed as he was by the raspberry liqueur fills him with an inexplicable pang of amusement.

There’s a pleasantness in their work that verges on bittersweet. Benny is methodical and focused, yet he takes the time to converse and make dry jokes and laugh at Castiel’s expense and receive the same in kind, and for the first time since they began their road trip Castiel doesn’t ache for his garrison as they banter, or even for Dean’s companionship. There’s something between them all their own, a friendship he can’t categorize, but the warmth of it buzzes pleasingly within him all the same. He allows himself this sentimentality; it might be the last chance he gets.

It’s near closing time for the little shop by the time they finish. Not a single customer has crossed the threshold, but the owner is doesn’t seem perturbed. She pulls Benny aside and carries on a hushed, if animated conversation before pressing some bills into his hand and shoving them both out the door, winking at Castiel just before it slams and the curtains are drawn.

He turns to Benny, who counts out the money in his hand. One hundred and sixty five dollars. Castiel’s eyes widen. Benny shrugs sheepishly.

“I talked her into a raise. Told her my friend was real sick, that you needed a roof over your head tonight. Didn’t take much convincing, to be honest.” He shoves the money into Castiel’s hand. “Take it. Let’s catch a cab to Lebanon and get this done.” He smiles as Castiel pockets the money reverently, scarcely daring to believe what’s in his hand. “We’ll be back to Sam glaring daggers at me within the week.” If he notices the way Castiel’s eyes dull at the words, he doesn’t show it.

“Thank you,” he says, this time letting every ounce of gratitude shine through his words.

“Should be the other way around,” Benny murmurs, just loud enough for Castiel to catch the words, and turns to raise a hand towards the empty street.  He narrows his eyes, feeling as though there’s a part of a conversation between the two of them he’s forgotten, but a yellow cab pulls up to the curb before he can pursue the thought.

By the time the sun sets, Kansas City is little more than a cloud of fiery lights against the blackening sky. The afterimage burns into his retinas as he turns his gaze toward the road ahead and drifts off to sleep. In his dreams, he almost swears he can hear the rejoicing of the Israelites as they follow the burning pillar towards the Red Sea. Too many years of angelic tinkering have wiped the memory from his mind; still, he knows the ending to the story well enough.

Moses dies friendless and disgraced on a lonely mountaintop, but Joshua lives to see the Promised Land. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winding down (or gearing up?) to the end, folks :) They're nearly there...


	12. Chapter 12

There’s something tugging at him, a hand reaching below his skin and yanking at the cords in his chest. It burns like ice and he awakes with a hoarse cough, clawing at the air beside him. Benny’s hand grabs his and presses it back to his chest, where the burning is nothing more than the acidic scorch of bile he can’t quite keep low enough not to taste. He supresses the next cough and shudders.

The cabbie drops them off on the edge of the nature preserve just outside of Warsaw at Castiel’s behest. The knock-toothed man looks out dubiously at the naked trees before driving away, a note of concern the up-bow on his farewell, but he seems happy enough to take the money. It’s the last they’ve got.

Castiel can barely stand when he clambers out of the cab. He leans on Benny’s shoulder while he gets his bearings, his stubble catching on the thin fabric of Benny’s shirt. Turning his head away requires too much energy so he lets it rest there, soaking up Benny’s heat through the sticky cotton. He thinks belatedly that they should have stopped for food.

They stagger like this for a time – Castiel slowly regaining his strength as they walk but still feeling rather disoriented – following no trail but finding their way all the same. Benny is silent all the while.

After an hour or so the0y come upon an old tourist outpost with a flame-haired guardian. The young woman in the shack snaps her laptop closed as they walk through the door, stowing it with such a rush beneath her desk that it sends a pile of newspapers cascading onto the floor. On all their covers is the portrait of a man wearing steel blue slacks and a bright grin. LOCAL REAL ESTATE MOGUL MURDERED IN HOMELESS SHELTER STABBING. The picture is all wrong for the headline, and it takes Castiel a moment to parse the meaning of what he’s reading – too difficult to reconcile the contrast (his eyes aren’t dead, how can  _he_ be?) and realize there’s more out of place than just the man’s forced smile.

Why was a man like this – powerful, obviously of substantial means –in the shelter to begin with? Shouldn’t Castiel have noticed him? Paranoia had him taking stock of every face the night they’d slept at Union, and this tycoon didn’t fit the bill. He supposes it makes little difference now.

Benny steps forward to offer a hand and without his presence at his side Castiel feels suddenly unsteady, like someone’s yanked the flooring out from underneath him and left him to balance on gelatin instead. Dizzy, he leans against the counter, blinking and nodding to clear the static that scratches through his head.

He watches woozily as Benny helps the girl shove the last of the papers back onto the desk. She’s taller than him, maybe even taller than Dean is. Her red hair falls past her shoulderblades, unkempt and shining, and he thinks he sees a silver sword in her hand. She opens her mouth to ask them if they’d like a pamphlet? a bird-watching guide? a map? and he hears a ringing on the air, and he blinks again and Anna is holding out a hand to him.  _I’m so proud of you, brother_ , she sings, stepping lightly towards him, eyes flashing, halo burning and burning and burning till it blinds him to everything but her approving smile.  _You made a choice._

Shaking his head, Castiel tries to tell her he made a hundred choices, a thousand choices, and that they were all  _wrong_ , but he can’t seem to make his mouth move. She inclines her head to the north and spins her sword once, twice to point in the same direction. She smiles wider and the illusion cracks; her sword melts in her grasp and streams silver down through the cracks in the floorboards. A wave of nausea rolls through him and he doubles over, clenching his stomach. Another arm covers his and he struggles against it, trying to keep his gaze turned to Anna but Benny is too strong, or Castiel is too weak, and then he’s outside vomiting what little remains in his stomach into the decaying leaves. A rough hand rubs circles on his back all the while, fingers brushing the nape of his neck and passing through the mangy hair there and he leans back into the touch, wiping his mouth.

Benny’s hand keeps moving, smearing trails of liquid heat across his back. The girl’s standing in front of him now, offering a sip of water from a paper cone. She’s undeniably human: she looks afraid, and that’s how he knows for sure. Even till the very end, Anna was never afraid. There’s an afterglow of light surrounding her like she might have a halo, but as he looks around, vision skittering from point to point, he sees that the trees have an aura too, and the grey fog shimmers with white sparks. Anna is not here, but somehow this place feels holy all the same.

Castiel bids her farewell with a soft smile the girl does not return. He takes Benny’s hand and leads them onward, northward.

There’s a copse of trees blocking their path where they rest for a short time. They’re getting close, he can feel it resonating in his bones. He wants to go on but Benny urges him not to overexert himself, even as he himself fidgets and shrugs and sweats, itching to bound away into the shade of entangled trees. He sits on a protruding root across from Castiel and his leg bounces up and down, frantically and then slower when Benny realizes what he’s doing, like he’s working a bellows. Castiel could see him in a blacksmith’s shop , with his reddened face and sweat-soaked shirt that not even the cool breeze can dry. Castiel is the iron, cold and unfeeling, ready to be remade. He’s ready.

Sometimes as they move forward, Castiel thinks he can hear footsteps behind them in the underbrush, then in front, twigs snapping, whispered voices in the flutter of leaves. He knows the fae inhabit forests like these. Will they forgive him for the black mark he plans to leave on their home?

Benny doesn’t sense their presence, or if he does, he isn’t concerned. Maybe it’s just Castiel’s imagination – like Anna, something trying to point him in the right direction.

The voices move to the right. Castiel veers. Benny follows him without question.

The noise is soon drowned by the rush of water. It seems appropriate: Dean stole him from the riverbed, and to the river he’ll return, to trouble him no more. Poetic, almost. The wind stirs and the voices laugh with him, it seems, and he feels strangely light-hearted.

It’s rocky by the shore and he stumbles. Benny catches him, and Castiel clings on tightly and – he cannot stop himself – nuzzles his face into Benny’s neck. His stomach swoops – from hunger, nervousness, excitement, or fever he cannot tell – and Benny is running his hand down his back and it burns still, burns like Anna’s halo, sharp and bright. “Can you make it?” Benny asks, and Castiel nods against his shoulder, smiling. Of course he can. They’re almost there. Benny gives him a strange look at his expression, but he lets Castiel rest a while longer against his shoulder. He can feel the man’s hands twitching against his back, like they can’t seem to settle in one place, indecisive.

The heady feelings are back again, the same sensation from the clothing shop, like the whole world collapses down into the spaces where they touch. It takes all his will to push back this time, and when he finally does the euphoria vanishes, a new ache taking its place and entwining with the tugging in his chest.  He feels surer on his feet now, but Benny takes his arm all the same and the moment his hand touches Castiel again, even through the leather of his jacket, he feels centred. Benny grips too tightly. He trembles. He shakes. Castiel doesn’t mind, he even pretends not to notice. The support is a lifeline; he draws strength with every step.

It’s long past midday by the time the tugging in his chest fades and he knows they’ve arrived.

There’s a mark on the tree – four circles arrayed about three lines, three branches – which stands tall at the end of a small clearing, filled with limp moss and dried leaves that the wind tosses carelessly about. Castiel runs his fingers against the grooves in the wood and feels the sharpness of Dean’s knife against his palm. He closes his hand into a fist and drops it to his side.

“What is that?” Benny’s words are the first spoken in over an hour.

“Protection,” Castiel murmurs. “It’s old magic.”  _But still younger than I._

The ground is blanketed by the moss except at the very centre of the clearing. There the dirt is turned up, like an animal had been pawing the ground. Castiel drops to his knees at the edge of the disturbance. He feels the wind keenly now. Benny drops down beside him, and wordlessly begins to dig.

He works with a fevered intensity, tearing up chunks of earth with his bare hands. Castiel gathers his knees to his chest and shivers, pulling his jacket close, trying not to reach out and disturb Benny’s work despite every instinct in his body telling him to close the distance between them. The world is flashing around him, pockets of white and silver former in the corner of his eyes whenever he looks about, so he stops. He keeps his eyes on Benny, whose aura is golden and hazy and warm.

Dean’s voice crawls into his ear, like the man is kneeling behind him, with a whisper as cold as the wind.  _You can’t stay here._  He looks down at his hands. Grey, colourless, empty. Dying like the leaves beneath his legs. No halo, no aura. The only thing left in this place that doesn’t shine.

He drifts for a while, and it’s only Benny’s grip on his shoulder that brings him back to reality. The sun’s nearly set and the hole is two feet deep when he opens his eyes. “We’re nearly there,” Benny says, and Castiel doesn’t bother to question how he knows that, if he doesn’t even know what they’re here for. It’s too tiring to form words.

Benny tears up one last handful of dirt and then he grabs the edge of something dark protruding from the ground and tugs, hard. The  _something_  pulls free with a rain of pebbles and damp earth, and Benny lays it on the ground.

It’s a black cap – decomposing and filthy, but unmistakable. Benny takes his own from his head and places it beside the torn-up copy.

It’s a perfect match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> (Ps. I miss Anna so much. Makes me want to watch season 4 again.)


	13. Chapter 13

They don’t bother unearthing the whole body. There’s nothing more than a thin layer of soil, easily broken, covering the rest of the remains. It’ll hardly be a problem when the time comes.

 The cold brightness of a skull peeps out through the blanket of leaves the wind has already tossed into the ravaged grave. A corner of stained linen caresses the jawbone, frozen in a lopsided smile. Benny’s expression is far less jolly than his skeletal counterpart’s.

“So,” he says after a time. “I was right.” Castiel rubs his hands together, trying to force some feeling back into limbs that have gone dead numb. “We  _were_ looking for a corpse.”

Here at last is the moment. A final test. One last chance for Castiel to show his commitment.

“The least you could have done was bury me as far from the forest as possible,” Benny says dryly.  I was already condemned to spend the rest of eternity staring at trees.”

“It wasn’t me who buried you.”

“I know. You never could take a joke, could you?” Even through the annoyance, Castiel can taste the hint of fondness buried beneath the words. His stomach heaves again, but there’s nothing left to bring up.

“Dean told me where he dug the grave.” It feels strange to admit the half buried collage of bones and rotted clothing is Benny, when his voice, his laugh, his essence hovers shining in the corner of Castiel’s eye. It’s almost like having his sight again: his truesight. The body means nothing without the soul, so how can he look at this cold thing and claim to see his friend?

“So what am I?”

A spirit, an illusion. A hope. “Alive. But only temporarily.” Benny shifts, but does not balk at the revelation. “The spell isn’t finished.”

“What did you do?”

“I brought you back.”

“How?”

“We need to hurry.”

“ _How_?” Benny seizes his arm and Castiel hears, rather than feels, the crack as the bone splinters beneath his grasp. Benny snatches his hand back in shock.  There’s no pain, only pinpricks of fading warmth where his hand had been _._

“A trade,” he says, because there’s no point in concealing it now, not if they’re to end this before it’s too late. Benny stares at his arm, apparently startled into silence. “There are a few laws in the universe that even angels can’t subvert.” _Not that it would make a difference now, considering present circumstances_. “The conservation of energy is one of them. A candle…” It takes him a moment to remember the illustration. He’d prepared these words even before he’d brought Benny back, a script rehearsed on cold nights huddled under bridges and stamping his feet in line for a meagre bowl of pea soup. His mind feels almost as thick as the broth now, his former clarity lost amidst the shimmering lights dancing from bough to bough. He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. “A candle needs wax to burn.” He tries to shrug his shoulders and hisses out the last words as his body jolts him, reminds him of the damage inflicted beneath the skin. Truthfully, he should be glad to be rid of anything so breakable. The thought isn’t as comforting now as it once was. “You’re the flame.”

When he finally gathers the courage to look directly at him, he finds that Benny is angry, crouching with wide eyes and clenched fists. Somehow, Castiel wasn’t expecting that.

“A trade,” he repeats, snarling, wolflike. “You sorry, stupid-” All words he’s been called before, but they cut at him nonetheless. “All this time…?”

“I’ve tethered your spirit here. But the binding needs energy, and mine’s almost gone. You’ll be too if we don’t finish the spell.”

“And how exactly do we do that?”

He chokes out the words through chattering teeth. “True life… The essence of being… I was always told it was the most precious gift our Father gave.” He wasn’t sure anymore he believed God had anything to do with it, but the physics of the matter weren’t changed by his crisis of faith. “Wax isn’t enough to set the wick alight. It needs something stronger. A spark.”

By the flash of understanding on Benny’s face, he knows he need not spell it out. “A soul.”

“The truest form of energy there is.”

Benny looks at him,  _really_ looks at him, and Castiel wants to crumble under the coldness in his gaze. “Suicide.”

He holds Benny’s eyes, he keeps his voice steady. “Redemption.”

Whatever patience kept Benny still snaps in that moment and he’s up on his feet, restlessly pacing the torn up ground. “A trade.” He laughs bitterly. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I suppose it must be true. Your life for mine?”

“It’s a fair trade.”

“For what?”

“For what?” he parrots, confused. “I told you-“

“I’m asking w _hy._ Why would you sacrifice yourself to bring me back?”

Some dormant instinct awakens, and it occurs to Castiel that he should lie. The words are all wrong now, though he can’t say why they no longer feel as righteous as they did at the start. But Benny is waiting and he doesn’t have the time to censor them, so he speaks truthfully. “Because Dean  _needs_  someone.”

“Oh,  _Dean_? The same Dean who threw you out of his home the moment you became inconvenient to him? The same Dean who left you starving and defenseless-”

“He had no choice-“

“Dean’s never struck me as the ‘giving up’ sort.”

“I needed to do something right!” With strength he didn’t know he had left, Castiel finds himself standing, facing off against Benny’s blazing eyes. “No matter what choices I make, I hurt Dean. I stayed away and I hurt him. I stayed close and I brought the armies of heaven down on him. He is  _everything_ and I’ve done nothing but cause him pain. So yes, I will throw myself off the parapet if it means bringing back the one thing that’s brought him unadulterated happiness.” He scoffs. “You can’t be angry with me for that.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”  _Obviously not_ , Castiel wants to snap, but he bites his tongue. “Do you know what’s really making me angry? You talk like compared to him, you’re nothing. He’s just a man, Castiel.” It may be the first time Benny’s called him his true name. He flinches at it. It makes him feel…  _accountable_ , somehow. Present in a way he wasn’t before. “His happiness isn’t worth more than your life.”

“His happiness is the only thing left that matters to me.”

Benny looks as though he might bloody his knuckles on the nearest tree. “Then what am I? Some pretty gift you trussed up to earn his love?”

Castiel inhales sharply. Two weeks ago, yes. Two weeks ago, Benny was a wisp of a memory, the remnant of a half-forgotten nightmare: something intangible, and ripe to be bartered.

Two weeks ago, he hadn’t been cradled in strong arms when his own strength failed. He hadn’t felt the security of another soul at his side to get him through the night, trusting he would still be there in the morning. He hadn’t laughed and joked and forgotten, even for an instant, all he had done and had failed to do. Two weeks ago, he hadn’t known there was a being left in the cosmos who cared if he lived or died.

“No. You’re more than that,” he admits.

“Then you’re more than a disposable toy who lives to make Dean Winchester happy.” Uriel’s face swims before his eyes, unbidden. He would have been sickened at how far the other had fallen. Then again, Castiel is one of Uriel’s apes now. Maybe it would have become his greatest joke. Irony at its finest. “And what about me, and my choices? What if I don’t want to be sent running back to someone who leaves his friends out in the cold?”

“He wouldn’t do that to you.” The fae laugh cruelly on the night breeze.  _You can’t stay here_. But Benny is different. Benny is blameless. Dean would never turn him away.

“He didn’t tell you how I died - the second time, I mean.” Castiel shakes his head, though he knows it wasn’t a question. “He beheaded me. Put a machete clean through my neck, and all to save a brother I could never much stand in the first place. I care for him, truly I do, but our debts are paid. I’m ready to move on with my life now, to try for one more fresh start.”

_It’s over, then._ Just like that, he can feel it all falling apart. Visions of Dean laughing joyfully as Benny’s crooked smile is revealed at the door, a grand homecoming, a bit of peace for Dean’s tortured heart crumble before his eyes and now he’s failed even in this, even in his final action. He’s squandered everything.

“Hey. Don’t look like that.” Benny’s hand is on his shoulder now, gentle and fiery and Castiel wrenches away, crying out more from the loss of contact than the splintered bone in his arm. He wants to be angry at Benny. He wants to hate him for taking away his last hope, but he can’t. This whole mess was his doing. He’ll see it through to the bloody end. “Castiel,” he says again, and the name sounds strange on his lips. He’d rather never hear it again, he decides.  

“It doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done,” he says, voice cold like the air around him. He half-smiles, feeling as ghastly as the skull that still laughs at the darkened sky. “My wax is nearly used up.”

“I can’t let you kill yourself for me.”

“If we don’t finish it, I’ll die anyway, and without me to tether you you’ll fade back to Purgatory. The whole thing will have been for nothing.”

But even if that wasn’t true…

Now that it comes to it, the thought of Benny wandering forever alone in Purgatory’s shadow hurts as much as his fear for Dean’s loneliness. Though none would ever see the benefit but Benny himself, he wouldn’t condemn him to that life, not even if it meant preserving his own. A fierce protectiveness rises within him at the thought, and for a moment, the fog on his mind clears, and he can see everything from on high as if he’d unfurled his wings and taken flight.

Whatever Dean and himself might have had is gone. It died years ago, chipped away by too much deceit and misunderstanding and pain. They’ve lost too much to be what they were, and even if Dean had welcomed him to stay with open arms that would not have changed. He’s lived a thousand thousand years, seen civilizations, species, mountains, even whole galaxies rise and fade as if they’d never existed at all. All things have their time, and all have an end. Why should friendship be different?

Their time is over. If Castiel had not been so desperate to disbelieve it, he’d have realized that some long time ago. Perhaps Dean realized sooner than him. Perhaps that’s the reason he turned Castiel away at the door.

The revelation fills him with sorrow, but not for the bond he’s lost. He’s spent years enough grieving its slow death, he sees that now. No, he aches because, too eager to reawaken a lump of charcoal, he’d been blind to the hutch of kindling at his side. Benny would have been a true friend if he’d been willing to put aside Dean and just  _try_ , but it was too late now for them. It was too late for everything.

Behind the brightness, Castiel can see the stubbornness in Benny’s eyes transform into something like acceptance, or at least resignation, echoing the feeling in his own heart. “There’s no other way?” he asks grimly.

“No.”

“… Then let’s get on with it.”

Benny’s aura is auburn in twilight as he kneels beside Castiel in the dirt. Castiel draws the swiss army knife from where it’s been tucked in his shoe. He’s kept it whetted and sharp – not as lethal as the angel blade, but less conspicuous when prying open cans of tuna or baked beans. It’s about the only thing that remains of the meager possessions bestowed upon him when he left the bunker that final time.

He hands it to Benny, not trusting his own shaking hands to spring the blade free. Aluminum glints under the light of stars, and he holds out his hand. Benny is hesitant but he eventually relinquishes the knife. Castiel shudders as he tests the blade against his skin – too cold, as all things are. Twigs crackle in the unseen leaves beyond the skirts of the trees. The fae are restless. He silently bids them  _wait_ , the darkness will pass. Benny glances off to the left where their voices whisper loudest, looking anxious.

One quick stroke and the deed will be done. He’ll be dead, but Benny will be free to find his new start wherever he chooses, even if it’s far from the place Castiel had originally intended. The thought fills him with a sudden warmth, more pleasing than even the heat of siphoned energy where their knees press. It won’t all be for nothing.

The wind still howls against the trees. The fae are watching closely now. They’re warning him, and growing more urgent with each second. They must know what’s about to come.  _Wait._ He gathers his courage.

A ringing on the air startles him out of his mental preparation. The spheres are singing, like they did when the ambushes came in dingy diners, bringing flight and blackened sockets where eyes used to be. Whatever threads of grace still course through his body hearken to the sound, drawing him despite his fear, and he feels half alive even as they emerge from the trees.

Their look is unmistakable. Baggy sweater and tailored suit, shaggy blonde hair and messy black curls, pale and dark as night, and both glowing, glowing with the blue of the unburdened sky. Castiel feels heady with it as their grace calls out to him, beckoning him to  _come._ He is afraid, but not for himself; his life is forfeit either way. But they won’t kill him  _now_ , and that makes all the difference. He knows what he has to do.

He raises the knife to his throat, tilting his head back. He feels, rather than hears the desperate cries of the angels, but they’re too far away to stop him. One quick stroke-

It never falls. The knife is knocked from his hands into the dirt, and Castiel is staring into anguished eyes, Benny’s heavy body placed between him and their only salvation. “I’m sorry,” Benny is saying, again and again, holding him back even as he claws desperately towards the knife. He has only a moment to feel the sting of betrayal before they are upon him, tearing him from Benny’s electric grasp, curling silver fingers through his hair. The light fades, and the trees, and the blue of Benny’s eyes. Even the cold passes from him. All that remains is the leer of bleached teeth, widening to swallow him whole.


	14. Chapter 14

The first time Castiel died, it was to the melody of Michael’s wings scorching the air. The second was in a burst of red at the snap of Lucifer’s fingertips. He thinks lazily as he drifts that this is, at least, a less humiliating way to go than on his elder brother’s whim. At any rate, it makes for a change.

He hears his name, louder and softer and then louder again, like a cry echoing between two walls. The voice feels larger than himself. It envelops the whole empty space. (It might be that he will be the one to find God after all, talisman or no.) Castiel relaxes and leans toward the sound, relishing the warmth that spreads through him as he does. In death at last the icy grip relinquishes him, and he feels content. He feels ready.

He opens his eyes to find the sun glaring back, half-risen above the reddish crowns of cedars and oaks.

He doesn’t feel astonished. It’s not too far a stretch to reason he must have taken Benny’s place in Purgatory. Death would have been preferable. Still, he supposes this maintains the balance rather cleanly.   

But no, then again… The trees were grey there, and everything else too. Nothing like the crisply coloured leaves quavering against the blue sky above. One falls and lands upon the corner of his mouth. He puffs a little air from his lips to knock it away. A gentle laugh rumbles beyond his vision and he turns his head to seek out its owner.

Benny is squatting in the dirt beside him. Indeed, there seems to be more dirt than Benny; his entire body is caked in it, and if Castiel were a more prudish being, he might blush at the exposed skin beneath his rotted clothing. But here he is, and for one hysterical moment Castiel truly believes he’s managed to kill them both, and that they’ve somehow ended up in the Garden, and that Joshua might come strolling from the undergrowth at any minute. Then he remembers that the Garden was laid to waste long ago, and Joshua fled even before Raphael’s army marched into Heaven. Besides, the door is shut.

He blinks. Benny waves his hand in front of his eyes, and he bats it away. Benny laughs again.

“I’m alive?” he asks, throat aching with the effort – the tinny water and paper cup and  _Anna_  feel long ago – and a voice he doesn’t recognize answers.

“Nearly so. Give it another minute.”

Castiel drags his eyes from Benny long enough to find the other speaker. She kneels to his right, a bit farther off. Her shaggy blonde hair falls in her eyes as she bends her head forward. Trying to place her face feels as though he’s grasping at the depths of a dark well, but when he finally does he recoils.

“Don’t be afraid, Castiel.” He likes his name on her lips even less than on Benny’s, but she doesn’t sound maniacal or malicious. If anything, there’s admiration in her voice.

She lifts one hand to linger on another’s shoulder, brushing back black curls with long fingers. The second angel’s eyes are closed, and she sways where she sits, head bowed: a woman at prayer. The grey of her woolen suit stands out against the green and brown hues of the forest at her back; their only affinity is the brownish speckling on her white collar. Shudders run through her body as she rocks back and forth, and blue light spills from her fingertips. As he watches, it grows fainter and fainter.

Muscles that were atrophied loosen and warm, and he flexes his fingers to find they’ve lost all trace of numbness. When he makes to sit up he forgets himself a moment and tries to lean on his left arm. Castiel cries out as the fractured bone gives way underneath him.

Benny is at his side in an instant, supporting him with his own weight and boosting him up so he can sit comfortably upon the dewy ground. The silent angel opens her eyes for half a moment, just long enough for Castiel to catch her gaze. There’s something disquietingly familiar in her brown eyes, a cool intensity that has him leaning back against Benny’s chest, needing the solidarity to stop the fight or flight instincts from taking over. He knows her.

“How-?” he manages to croak, but her companion shushes him.

“Wait.”

The last of the light fades from trembling hands. Finally, she raises her head. Even without her shining white office or meticulous presentation, with loose hair and dirt on her knees, Naomi looks every bit as centred as she did holding a scalpel to his temple. His body screams  _danger,_   _danger._

 “Hello again,” she says, carefully. His eyes are drawn to her throat. A thick liquid is smeared across her collarbones and chest like a sloppy paint stroke, staining her collar and the lapels of her suit. There’s no wound that he can see, but it’s unmistakably blood.

“You were dead. Metatron killed you,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. Her corpse, drowned in a pool of blood atop an immaculate desk, swims to the front of his mind. She couldn’t have survived. It’s not possible.

Her lips purse. “He believed he did. But my instruments were never meant to kill.”

“Only to invade,” he bites back. Shock at her return isn’t enough to temper the anger he still feels towards her.  

She looks wounded, but only for a moment. Always the professional. “I was unfeeling. Cruel, even. I’ve done you great harm.” Benny stiffens just slightly behind him. “I’ve come to make amends.”

She offered him help once before. He refused her, and Heaven fell. Can he make the same mistake twice?

“How?” he finally asks.

“Your friend is alive, and whole.” That he cannot deny. The dirty linen of Benny’s shirt is rough against his jacket, his legs hard muscled lines against his hips. His weight is tangible, and unremarkable. No electricity sparks where their bodies touch. Nothing shimmers. Everything is as it should be.

“You finished the ritual.”  _But none of us are dead. How is that possible?_

She reads the unspoken question on his lips. “All we needed was a lifeforce.” Naomi taps her hand to her throat. “As much as it pains me to say it, Metatron  _was_  right about one thing. The grace of an angel is powerful. All that cosmic energy…”

“Enough to rekindle a human soul,” he finishes.

“Yes.”

He sees now the line where the silver sword must have sliced.  _She’s human now. Like me._  She doesn’t look any different. It seems to him she should be deflated somehow, but her frame is still held proudly, her eyes are still alert and clear. She wears her fall better than he did.

 “You knew?” Castiel asks, turning his head to meet Benny’s eyes.

He seems abashed. “I met Ruth here on the road while you were sleeping. Seemed to me that we had no chance of outrunning them, so there wasn’t much to lose by listening to what she had to say.” He shrugs. “You were dying. She said they could save you. It was worth the risk.”

Castiel can’t blame him, not truly, but he feels disturbed all the same. Why wouldn’t Benny have  _told_  him… But then again, had Benny said Naomi was offering them a way out, he’s not sure he’d have taken the offer. One trustworthy act is not enough to wipe out a year of deception and manipulation, to account for all the things she did to him and made him do. Even now, after she’s given him his life, it makes his skin crawl and his stomach churn to be this close to her. But Benny doesn’t know what she’s done. He knows only what the angel told him, which was likely little enough. He can’t blame him.

He nods, keeping his eyes ever on Naomi. She even looks penitent, her soft brown eyes -   _human_  eyes - begging him to forgive her. It could still be an act. He doesn’t trust himself enough to tell the difference.

“We should go,” he says stiffly. “There might be other angels closing in.”

“We took care of the ones who were tracking you,” Ruth says. She sounds young, bright. Eager, even. He’s known many angels like her. They were the first to fall on the battle lines. “The man in the shelter, and two more along the road. The others will need days to catch up.”

Neatly combed hair, zipped into a body bag and wheeled out on a gurney. Castiel spares a moment to pity the real estate mogul who gave his body up to such an unworthy host. He wonders if Naomi’s vessel is alive after having her throat slit open, her life blooming red and cascading down her chest. He wonders how much pain she felt, how much confusion and fear. He looks into those brown eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the creature beneath, but sees only Naomi’s steady gaze.

No, he decides, he won’t forgive her.

Benny helps him to his feet. The ground is steady beneath him. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. A simple step without needing to be supported is a great accomplishment. The loss of his own grace feels a far distant memory, and almost insignificant in comparison to the relief of a functioning body. He’s more than content to simply have full control of his limbs again. Well, most of them.

“I can fix your arm, if you’d like.” He regards Ruth, who still crouches on the ground, feeling less certain about her than the one she follows. He doesn’t know a thing about her. But if she meant to harm them, surely she would have done it by now?

 “No, I think I’ll let it heal.” He’s had enough of magical forces tampering with his body. Better to trust in the strength of his flesh to right itself. It’s carried him this far.

She doesn’t press the issue, and when he and Benny make to leave they don’t follow, though Ruth seems almost sad to see them go. Naomi looks more thoughtful, and Castiel is eager to put as much space between those eyes and himself as possible. There are no farewells.

His feet carry him five minutes, enough to put several layers of patchwork wood behind them, before his breath comes out in a wheeze and he collapses against a tree. Benny is at his side in an instant.

“I’m alright,” he whispers.

Benny’s hand on his uninjured arm doesn’t burn him like before. He can’t feel some powerful connection through three different pieces of fabric, infusing energy into his skin. But the weight is pleasant all the same, and tingles in a strange way that has his heart gaining pace. Suddenly he feels giddy, like he could leap to grasp the branch above him and swing himself up and away into the air. He’s alive. Benny is beside him, and he’s alive.

 “I’m s-“

“You have  _nothing_ ,” he says firmly, “to be sorry for.”

Benny’s cap is on his head, the one they pulled from the ground. It’s covered in debris and he reaches up to knock an errant leaf off its brow. A trickle of dirt courses down its side and dusts the top of Benny’s ear and Castiel brushes that away too, and then the worst of the grime from the creases around his eye. He can barely tell the difference when he’s done. His hand moves lower, leaving trails of pale flesh beneath caked brown wherever it brushes. He smudges the dirt on his cheek with his thumb, fingertips skimming the course edge of wiry hair on Benny’s jaw and knocking loose bits of dried grass.

Benny licks his lips, chapped and pink and now the only clean thing on his face, and Castiel’s thumb moves involuntarily to trace the edge of his mouth.

Sparks.

He snatches his hand back, feeling his cheeks heat up. For the first time in weeks, he feels too warm. “We should get you cleaned up,” he says, looking at the ground. “We’ll need to hitchhike back to town.”

“I suppose I don’t look very respectable, do I?” The amused lilt in his voice is choked somehow. Castiel can’t meet his eye. “Guess I should wash up a bit.”

“The river was this way.” The fae, if they were ever there to begin with, are silent now and won’t guide him again, but he can hear the rush of water on the air.

“Lead on, then.”

Castiel takes a step forward, away from the place he was destined to die, away from Naomi, away from the sharp edge of Dean’s knife. He follows the call of the river. He leaves all other thoughts behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is the end, all! Thanks for sticking with me :D
> 
> On a side note, when I wrote this chapter all those years ago (back when Season 9 was the newest season), it almost felt a little deus-ex-machiney. Knowing what I know now, having watched almost to the end of Season 11 (I know, I know, I'm still catching up), it actually jives better than what I anticipated with how powerful angel grace canonically is. That's a nice little bonus for having published it so late ;)


	15. Chapter 15

There’s something to be envied in the constancy of the river. The water swirls its path unhindered over smoothed stones and around fallen branches, ferrying twigs and minnows downstream in its silken flow. Castiel dips his hand in and brings it to his mouth.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Benny is perched on the bank, resplendent on a throne of tangled roots. He scoops a handful of the water and empties it over his head. Rivulets clear lightning lines of dust from his forehead and nose and neck. “You don’t know where it’s been.” He inclines his head upstream. “Anything could be up there.”

The river bends just a few hundred metres from their resting spot. Most of the trees are bare but a few evergreens cast coloured shadows on the water, their dark foliage bowing in the breeze. Castiel peers towards the source of the water but there’s nothing to indicate what lies at its mouth, or at its end for that matter. There’s only forest, and the sound of birds cheering on midday.

Castiel cups his hands and emulates Benny, letting the cool water cascade over his matted hair. His jacket lies on the ground beside him. Its softness is not any faded from their expedition; the leather is still as supple and warm as the day they bought it. He wraps it around his shoulders and joins Benny on his roost.  

There isn’t much leeway between sitting and falling onto the muddy ground so he shuffles himself toward the trunk till he feels the tug of bark against his back. “Well,” says Benny. “Look at us. Dirty and wet and skulking on riverbanks. Some things never change.”

The swiss army knife lies abandoned in that ravaged clearing. He has no desire to retrieve it.  _And some things do._

Castiel lays his head against the tree, soaking in the warmth of the sunlight. Benny’s positioned himself in the shade of whatever leaves remain on its branches, keeping the light off his face, but even so he can see the way Benny grimaces as the rays pierce through the holes in his clothing. He slips the jacket from his shoulders and drapes it over Benny’s torso.

Benny protests, but without force. “I’d like to protect  _you_ for once,” he hushes. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

“Fair enough,” he says with a chuckle, and drags the leather around his body so that it veils his broad chest. He slouches down, closing his eyes against the glare. Castiel would have thought he’d fallen asleep, except that he begins to tap his foot lightly as he reclines, beating in time with an private melody.

Habit informs him they should be running. There’s always been some place he’s needed to be, always a reason to wing off and leave wherever he is behind. Safety, duty, even compassion always kept him moving. Now, he realizes, there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere he’s needed, no one left to find. It’s a wide open world.

Benny is whistling the scrap of a tune. Only a few notes, but it sounds familiar, like something he must have heard over a dollar of coffee in some rundown cafe. He used to love music. Somewhere along the line, maybe beneath overpasses and in the clang of garbage can lids, he’d forgotten.

“Where will you go?” he probes. Benny cracks an eyelid open.

“Haven’t decided yet.” He pauses. He seems to be waiting for some word from him, but Castiel’s not sure what he’s meant to say. When he doesn’t respond Benny closes his eyes again.

Castiel stares out over the open water, fingers absently tracing the gnarls in the wood beneath him. There’s nowhere to be.

Which means he can go anywhere.

Benny sits up yawning, a lazy cat savouring the shade. They’re shoulder to shoulder now. Equals.

“Where will  _you_  go?” Benny asks. He takes a long moment to consider.

“ _On_ ,” Castiel decides, and Benny looks at him like he understands, and maybe he does.

“That’s as good a place as any.”

The leather jacket slides into Benny’s lap as he sits and something on its lining catches Castiel’s eye. He reaches a hand forward and takes it from him, and unfolds the fabric until the inside is laid bare.

There’s a map printed on the stained sienna polyester. Faded black lines trace the borders of the states of America. Swirls show cities joined by crooked dashes, and wider slashes of grey cut the path of rivers across the landscape. Some lines even crawl up past the border, into the Canadian provinces. The workmanship is hardly geographically accurate, but the illumination is beautiful nonetheless. He traces the lines from one city to the next with his finger, following a trail up the eastern coast.

“I’ll be damned,” says Benny. “I never even noticed that.”

A hundred journeys are spread out before him. The distances seem so small, hardly a finger’s breadth between some cities. He lays the edge of his palm against the border of Missouri and his hand’s span takes him almost to the Atlantic.

“How long would it take to get to Michigan?”

Benny peers down at the map. “A day or two’s drive at least, I’d say. What’s in Michigan?”

_Nothing of import._ “I heard the name in a song once. It sounded like a beautiful place.”

Benny shakes his head, bemused. “That’s a romantic notion,” he mutters. “For you, at least.” But he doesn’t chastise Castiel for imprudence or selfishness or wasting time. Instead, he leans closer and places his hand beside Castiel’s.

“Half a day’s drive up this road will take you to St. Louis. I know a place there, best sausage gravy I’ve ever eaten in my life. I expect there’s a bus that’ll take you straight up past Chicago.” His fingertips ghost past Castiel’s knuckles as they follow the route north. His leg twitches as they dip into the inside of his knee, where the Great Lakes are suspended. He feels his stomach swoop like he’s about to tumble from the throne.

“I’ve never had sausage gravy before,” he says. Benny glances up, and he takes a breath. “Will you show me?”

Benny just looks at him. His stare is hard and steady, and Castiel has to fight the urge to move his body somehow, to fall backwards into the water or to surge forward and do… something. He makes a fist around a leather sleeve and clenches it until the stare gentles. “Sure,” Benny says softly. “Let’s do that.” And his expression settles into something warm, and he looks happy. Castiel’s not yet used to that sort of look from him. It’s not like his smile in Purgatory. Not victorious, or lusty on violence, drunk on survival and blood. Just  _happy_.  

He leans in and presses his mouth to Benny’s, and nothing momentous happens. No oceans divide, no stars fall, no ozone scorches in the air. Benny tastes of earth and clear water, a thing of the land. Like he is. He has the same dirt on his brow and beneath his nails. He’s glad for the simplicity. He thinks,  _this is a good thing._

When he pulls away, Benny looks at him and his eyes are full of wonder, like he’s some new creature staggered from the trees, like he can’t believe his eyes. “Is that- was I-?” he stumbles, suddenly unsure. It felt like the right thing to do, but then again…

“You think too much,” Benny says, and without another word he shoves Castiel into the water.

He comes up sputtering, but before he can catch his breath another splash knocks him off balance and there’s Benny whooping beside him, dragging him back under. The second time he comes up, it’s to the sound of Benny’s laughter on the air. “You look like a drowned kitten,” he teases, and Castiel has only a second to pout before Benny wraps his arms around his waist and kisses him hard, and any half-formed retorts scatter from his mind.

They’re soaked and shivering by the time they clamber back onto the bank, and Castiel’s arm is throbbing something fierce, but somehow he can’t stop smiling. An involuntary response of his muscles, but he feels it keenly now, the joy and the way it’s fused with the pull of skin and tendons. He smiles and it feels easy. It feels right.

“Back to the road?” Benny asks, snatching the jacket off the roots and draping it over his dripping head and neck like a cowl.

“To the road,” Castiel agrees.  There’s no discernable path trampled between the trees, but they know the general direction, and that’s enough.  

_To the road. And then to sausage gravy, and Michigan, and_ on _._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done!! Missing the promised edits, but FINISHED, which is far more important. Thank you to everyone who followed along, I hope the ending is satisfactory!
> 
> PS/Fun Fact: The leather jacket described in this chapter was actually based on one I owned in university. For most of my life, the grand majority of my clothes came from thrift shops, and five dollar leather jackets were my specialty (I possess an uncanny ability to find the Good Stuff within such stores, probably due to practice). This one came from Salvation Army, and it had the coolest map on the inside, which is why I wore it so often despite being at least three sizes too big for me.


End file.
